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Burning of the ""Philadelphia." Frontispiece. 



i^o STORIES OF 



GREAT AMERICANS 



FOR 



LITTLE AMERICANS 



SECOND READER GRADE 



BY 

EDWARD EGGLESTON 

AUTHOR OF "TRUE STORIES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND ADVENTURE' 

"A FIRST BOOK IN AMERICAN HISTORY" AND "A HISTORY 

OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS PEOPLE FOR 

THE USE OF SCHOOLS " 




NEW YORK • : • CINCINNATI • : • CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



en 



I. 



^^'' 



Copyright, 1895, by 
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. 



PRINTED AT 

THE WASHINGTON PRESS 

NEW YORK, U. S. A. 



/ 



l/(sC> 



30 



PREFACE. 



The primary aim of this book is to furnish the Httle learner 
reading matter that will excite his attention and give him pleasure, 
and thus make lighter the difficult task of learning to read. The 
ruggedness of this task has often been increased by the use of 
disconnected sentences, or lessons as dry and uninteresting as 
finger exercises on the piano. It is a sign of promise that the 
demand for reading matter of interest to the child has come from 
teachers. I have endeavored to meet this requirement in the 
following stories. 

As far as possible the words chosen have been such as are not 
difficult to the little reader, either from their length or their un- 
familiarity. The sentences and paragraphs are short. Learning 
to read is like climbing a steep hill, and it is a great relief to 
the panting child to find frequent breathing places. 

It is one of the purposes of these stories to make the mind of 
the pupil familiar with some of the leading figures in the history 
of our country by means of personal anecdote. Some of the 
stories are those that every American child ought to know, 
because they have become a kind of national folklore. Such, for 
example, are " Putnam and the Wolf" and the story of " Frank- 
lin's Whistle." I have thought it important to present as great a 
variety of subjects as possible, so that the pupil may learn some- 

5 



thing not only of great warriors and patriots, but also of great 
statesmen. The exploits of discoverers, the triumphs of American 
inventors, and the achievements of men of letters and men of 
science, find place in these stories. All the narratives are his- 
torical, or at least no stories have been told for true that are 
deemed fictitious. Every means which the writer's literary ex- 
perience could suggest has been used to make the stories 
engaging, in the hope that the interest of the narrative may 
prove a sufficient spur to exertion on the part of the pupil, and 
that this little book will make green and pleasant a pathway that 
has so often been dry and laborious. It will surely serve to 
excite an early interest in our national history by giving some 
of the great personages of that history a place among the heroes 
that impress the susceptible imagination of a child. It is thus 
that biographical and historical incidents acquire something of the 
vitality of folk tales. 

The illustrations that accompany the text have been planned 
with special reference to the awakening of the child's attention. 
To keep the mind alert and at its best is more than half the 
battle in teaching. The publishers and the author of this little 
book believe that in laying the foundation of a child's education 
the best work is none too good. 

The larger words have been divided by hyphens when a separa- 
tion into syllables is likely to help the learner. The use of the 
hyphen has been regulated entirely with a view to its utility. 
After a word not too difficult has been made familiar by its 
repeated occurrence, the hyphens are omitted. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



The First (Governor in Boston ....... 9 

Marquette in Iowa ......... 11 

Indian Pictures ........ .16 

William Penn and the Indians ...... 17 

One Little Bag of Rice . . . . . . . . .21 

The Story of a Wise Woman .....,, 24 

Franklin his own Teacher ........ 26 

How Franklin found out Things ...... 29 

Franklin asks the Sunshine somethiiTg ...... 32 

Franklin and the Kite ........ 33 

Franklin's Whistle .......... 37 

Too much for the Whistle ........ yj 

John Stark and the Indians. ........ 39 

A Great Good Man 43 

Putnam and the Wolf ......... 49 

How Benny W^est learned to be a Painter 54 

Washington and his Hatchet ........ 59 

Washington's Christmas Gift ....... 6r 

How Washington got out of a Trap ...... 63 

Washington's Last Battle 67 

Marion's Tower .......... 69 

Clarke and his Men ......... 72 

Daniel Boone and his Grapevine Swing ...... 76 

7 



Daniel Boone's Daughter and her Friends . ... 79 

Decatur and the Pirates ......... 83 

Stories about Jefferson ........ 87 

A Long Journey . . . . . . . . . .90 

Captain Clarke's Burning Glass ....... 93 

Quicksilver Bob .......... 96 

The First Steamboat ......... 99 

Washington Irving as a Boy ........ loi 

Don't give up the Ship . . . . . . . .105 

Grandfather's Rhyme . . . . . . . . .106 

The Star-spangled Banner . . . . . . . .107 

How Audubon came to know about Birds . . . . .111 

Audubon in the Wild Woods . . . . . . .115 

Hunting a Panther . . . . . . . . . -117 

Some Boys who became Authors . . . . . .120 

Daniel Webster and his Brother . . . . . . .124 

Webster and the Poor Woman . . . . " '. . .126 

The India-rubber Man . . . . . . . . .128 

Doctor Kane in the Frozen Sea . . . . . . .132 

A Dinner on the Ice ......... 135 

Doctor Kane gets out of the Frozen Sea . . . . . 138 

Longfellow as a Boy . . . . . . . . .140 

Kit Carson and the Bears ........ 142 

Horace Greeley as a Boy ........ 145 

Horace Greeley learning to Print . . . . . .149 

A Wonderful Woman 153 

The Author of '' Little Women " 155 

My Kingdom 157 

A Song from the Suds 159 



STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS. 




Before the white people came, there were no 
houses in this country but the Httle huts of the 
In-di-ans. The In-di-an houses were made of bark, 
or mats, or skins, spread over poles. 

Some people came to one part of the country. 
Others started set-tle-ments in other places. When 
more people came, some of these set-tle-ments grew 
into towns. The woods were cut down. Farms 
wTre planted. Roads were made. But it took 
many years for the country to fill with people. 

The first white people that came to live in the 
woods where Boston is now, settled there a long 

9 



10 



time ago. They had a gov-ern-or over them. He 
was a good man, and did much for the people. 
His name was John Win-throp. 

The first thing the people had to do was to cut 
down the trees. After that they could plant corn. 
But at first they could not raise any-thing to eat. 
They had brought flour and oat-meal from Eng- 
land. But they found that it was not enough to 
last till they could raise corn on their new ground. 

Win-throp sent a ship to get more food for them. 
The ship was gone a long time. The people ate 
up all their food. They were hungry. They went 
to the sea-shore, and found clams and mussels. 
They were glad to get these to eat. 

At last they set a day for every-body to fast and 
pray for food. The gov-ern-or had a little flour left. 
Nearly all of this was made into bread, and put into 
the oven to bake. He did not know when he would 
get any more. 

Soon after this a poor man came along. His 
flour was all o-one. His bread had all been eaten 
up. His family were hungry. The gov-ern-or 
gave the poor man the very last flour that he had 
in the barrel. 

Just then a ship was seen. It sailed up toward 
Boston. It was loaded with food for all tlie people. 

The time for the fast day came. But there was 



1 1 



now plenty of food. The fast day was turned into 
a thanks-giving day. 

One day a man sent a very cross letter to Gov- 
ern-or Win-throp. Win-throp sent it back to him. 
He said, " I cannot keep a letter that might make 
me angry.'' Then the man that had written the 
cross letter wrote to Win-throp, " By con-quer-ing 
yourself, you have con-quered me." 



MARQUETTE IN IOWA. ' 

The first white men to go into the middle of our 
country were French-men. The French had set- 
tled in Can-a-da. They sent mis-sion-a-ries to preach 
to the Indians in the West. They also sent traders 
to buy furs from the Indians. 

Th? French-men heard the Indians talk about a 
great river in the W^est. But no French-man had 
ever gone far enough to see the Mis-sis-sip-pi. 

Mar-quette was a priest. Jo-li-et was a trader. 
These two men were sent to find the great river 
that the Indians talked about. 

They trav-eled in two birch canoes. They took 
five men to paddle the canoes. They took some 
smoked meat to eat on the way. They also took 
some Indian corn. Thcv had trinkets to trade to 



12 

the Indians. Hatchets, and beads, and bits of 
cloth were the money they used to pay the 
Indians for what they wanted. 

The friendly Indians in Wis-con-sin tried to 
per-SLiade them not to go. They told them that 
the Indians on the great river would kill them. 

The friendly Indians also told them that there 
was a demon in one part of the river. They said 
that this demon roared so loud that he could be 
heard a long way off. They said that the demon 
would draw the trav-el-ers down into the w^ater. 
Then they told about great monsters that ate up 
men and their canoes. 

But Mar-quette and the men with him thought 
they would risk the journey. They would not 
turn back for fear of the demon or the mon- 
sters. 

The two little canoes went down the Wis-con-sin 
River. After some days they came to the Mis-sis- 
sip-pi. More than a hundred years before, the Span- 
iards had seen the lower part of this river. But no 
white man had ever seen this part of the great river. 
Mar-quette did not know that any white man had 
ever seen any part of the Mis-sis-sip-pi. 

The two little canoes now turned their bows down 
the river. Some-times they saw great herds of buf- 
fa-loes. Some of these came to the bank of the 



13 

river to look at the men in the canoes. They had 
long, shaggy manes, which hung clown over their 
eyes. 

For tw^o weeks the trav-el-ers paddled down the 
river. In all this time they did not see any Indi- 
ans. After they had gone hundreds of miles in 
this way, they came to a place w^here they saw tracks 
in the mud. It was in what is now the State 
of I-o-wa. 

Mar-quette and Jo-li-et left the men in their ca- 
noes, and followed the tracks. After w^alking tw^o 
hours, they came to an Indian village. The French- 
men came near enough to hear the Indians talk- 
ing. The Indians did not see them. 

Jo-li-et and Mar-quette did not know whether the 
Indians would kill them or not. They said a short 
prayer. Then they stood out in full view, and gave 
a loud shout. 

The Indians came out of their tents like bees. 
They stared at the strangers. Then four Indi- 
ans came toward them. These Indians carried 
a peace pipe. They held this up toward the sun. 
This meant that they were friendly. 

The Indians now offered the peace pipe to the 
French-men. The French-men took it, and smoked 
with the Indians. This was the Indian way of 
saying, "We are friends." 



IV 







:3 



H 



15 

Mar-quette asked the Indians what tril^e they 
belonged to. They told him that they were of the 
tribe called the Il-li-nois. 

They took Jo-li-et and Mar-quette into their vil- 
lage. They came to the door of a large wig-wam. 
A chief stood in the door. He shaded his eyes 
with both hands, as if the sun were shining in his 
face. Then he made a little speech. 

He said, " French-men, how^ bright the sun shines 
when you come to see us ! We are all waiting 
for vou. You shall now come into our houses in 
peace." 

The Il-li-nois Indians made a feast for their new 
friends. First they had mush of corn meal, with fat 
meat in it. One of the Indians fed the French- 
men as though they were babies. He put mush 
into their mouths with a large spoon. 

Then came some fish. The Indian that fed the 
vis-it-ors picked out the bones with his fingers. 
Then he put the pieces of fish into their mouths. 
After this they had some roasted dog. The French- 
men did not like this. Last, they were fed with 
buf-fa-lo meat. 

The next morning six hundred Indians went to 
the canoes to tell the Frenchmen good-by. They 
gave Mar-quette a young Indian slave. And they 
gave him a peace pipe to carry with him. 



i6 



INDIAN PICTURES. 



When Mar-quette and his men left the Il-H-nois, 
they went on clown the river. The friendly Il-li- 
nois had told them that the Indians they would 
see were bad, and that they would kill any one who 
came into their country. 

The Frenchmen had heard before this that there 
were demons and monsters in the river. One day 
they saw some high rocks with pictures painted 
on them. The ugly pictures made them think of 
these monsters. They were painted in red, black, 
and green colors. They were pictures of two In- 
dian demons or gods. 

Each one of these monsters was about the size of 
a calf. They had horns as long as those of a deer. 
Their eyes were red. Their faces were like a 
man's, but they w^ere ugly and frightful. They 
had beards like a tiger's. Their bodies were cov- 
ered with scales like those on a fish. Their long 
tails were wound round their bodies, and over their 
heads, and down between their legs. The end of 
each tail was like that of a fish. 

The Indians prayed to these ugly gods when 
they passed in their canoes. Even Mar-quette and 
his men were a little frightened when they saw 
such pictures in a place so lonely. 



The Frenchmen went clown the river about 
twelve hundred miles. Some-times the Indians 
tried to kill them, but by showing the peace pipe 
they made friends. At last they turned back. 
Jo-li-et went to Can-a-da. Mar-quette preached to 
the Indians in the West till he died. 



WILLIAM PENN AND THE INDIANS. 

The King of England gave all the land in 
Penn-syl-va-ni-a to William Penn. The King made 
Penn a kind of king over Penn-syl-va-ni-a. Penn 
could make the laws of this new country. But he 
let the people make their own laws. 

Penn wanted to be friendly with the Indians. 
He paid them for all the land his people wanted 
to live on. Before he went to Penn-svl-va-ni-a he 
wrote a letter to the Indians. He told them in this 
letter that he would not let any of his people do any 
harm to the Indians. He said he would punish 
any-body that did any wrong to an Indian. This 
letter was read to the Indians in their own lan-guage. 

Soon after this Penn got into a ship and sailed 
from England. He sailed to Penn-syl-va-ni-a. 
When he came there, he sent word to the tribes 
of Indians to come to meet him. 

EGGL. (;T. AMER, — 2 



i8 



The Indians met under a great elm tree on the 
bank of the river. Indians hke to hold their solemn 
meetings out of doors. They sit on the ground. 
They say that the earth is the Indian's mother. 

When Penn came to the place of meeting, he 
found the woods full of Indians. As far as he 
could see, there were crowds of Indians. Penn's 
friends were few. They had no guns. 

Penn had a bright blue sash round his waist. 
One of the Indian chiefs, who was the great chief, 
put on a kind of cap or crown. In the middle of 
this was a small horn. The head chief wore this 
only at such great meetings as this one. 

When the great chief had put on his horn, all 
the other chiefs and great men of the Indians put 
down their guns. Then they sat down in front of 
Penn in the form of a half-moon. Then the great 
chief told Penn that the Indians were ready to hear 
what he had to say. 

Penn had a large paper in which he had written 
all the things that he and his friends had promised 
to the Indians. He had written all the promises 
that the Indians were to make to the white people. 
This was to make them friends. When Penn had 
read this to them, it was explained to them in their 
own lan-guage. Penn told them that they might 
stay in the country that they had sold to the white 



1 



19 

people. The land would belong to both the In- 
dians and the white people. 

Then Penn laid the large paper down on the 
ofround. That was to show them, he said, that the 
ofround was to belono^ to the Indians and the white 
people to-geth-er. 

He said that there might be quarrels between 
some of the white people and some of the Indians. 
But they would settle any quarrels without fight- 
ing. When-ever there should be a quarrel, the In- 
dians were to pick out six Indians. The w^hite 
people should also pick out six of their men. 
These were to meet, and settle the quarrel. 

Penn said, " I will not call you my children, be- 
cause fathers some-times whip their children. I 
will not call you brothers, because brothers some- 
times fall out. But I will call you the same per- 
son as the white people. We are the two parts of 
the same body." 

The Indians could not write. But they had 
their way of putting down things that they wished 
to have re-mem-bered. They gave Penn a belt 
of shell beads, These beads are called wam-pum. 
Some wam-pum is white. Some is purple. 

They made this belt for Penn of white beads. 
In the middle of the belt they made a picture 
of purple beads. It is a picture of a white man 



20 



and an Indian. They have hold of each other's 
hands. When they gave this belt to Penn, they 
said, " We will live with William Penn and his 
children as long as the sun and moon shall last." 




Penn jumping with the Indians. 

Penn took up the great paper from the ground. 
He handed it to the great chief that wore the horn 
on his head. He told the Indians to keep it and 
hand it to their children's children, that they might 
know what he had said. Then he gave them many 
presents of such things as they liked. 



21 



They gave Penn a name In their own lan- 
guage. They named him " O-nas." That was 
their word for a feather. As the white people 
used a pen made out of a quill or feather, they 
called a pen "o-nas." That is why they called 
William Penn " Brother O-nas." 

Penn sometimes went to see the Indians. He 
talked to them, and gave them friendly advice. 
Once he saw some of them jumping. They were 
trying to see W'ho could jump the farthest. 

Penn had been a very active boy. He knew how 
to jump very well. He went to the place where 
the Indians were jumping. He jumped farther 
than any of them. 

When the great gov-ern-or took part in their 
sport, the Indians were pleased. They loved 
Brother O-nas more than ever. 



ONE LITTLE BAG OF RICE. 

The first white people that came to this country 
hardly knew how to get their living here. They 
did not know what would grow best in this country. 

Many of the white people learned to hunt. All 
the land was covered with trees. In the woods 
were many animals whose flesh was good to eat. 



22 



There were deer, and bears, and great shaggy buf- 
fa-loes. There were rabbits and squirrels. And 
there were many kinds of birds. The hunters shot 
wild ducks, wild turkeys, wild geese, and pigeons. 
The people also caught many fishes out of the rivers. 

Then there were animals with fur on their backs. 
The people killed these and sold their skins. In 
this way many made their living. 

Other people spent their time in cutting down the 
trees. They sawed the trees into timbers and boards. 
Some of it they split into staves to make barrels. 
They sent the staves and other sorts of timber to 
other countries to be sold. In South Car-o-li-na 
men made tar and pitch out of the pine trees. 

But there was a wise man in South Car-o-li-na. 
He was one of those men that find out better ways 
of doing. His name was Thomas Smith. 

Thomas Smith had once lived in a large island 
thousands of miles away from South Car-o-li-na. 
In that island he had seen the people raising rice. 
He saw that it was planted in wet ground. He 
said that he would like to try it in South Car-o-li-na. 
But he could not get any seed rice to plant. The 
rice that people eat is not fit to sow. 

One day a ship came to Charles-ton, where 
Thomas Smith lived. It had been driven there 
by storms. The ship came from the large island 



23 



where Smith had seen 
rice grow. The cap- 
tain of this ship was an 
old friend of Smith. 

The two old friends 
met once more. Thomas 
Smith told the captain 
that he wanted some rice 
for seed. The captain called 
the cook of his ship, and asked 
him if he had any. The cook had 
one little bag of seed rice. The cap- 
tain gave this to his friend. 

There was some wet ground at 
the back of Smith's garden. In this 
wet ground he sowed some of the 
rice. It grew finely. 

He gathered a good deal of rice in his 
garden that year. He gave part of this 
to his friends. They all sowed it. The 
next year there was a great deal of rice. 

After a while the wet land in South 
Car-o-li-na was turned to rice fields. 
Every year many thousands of barrels 
of rice were sent away to be sold. 

All this came from one little bag of 
rice and one wise man. 




Rice Plant. 



24 



THE STORY OF A WISE WOMAN. 

You have read how Thomas Smith first raised 
rice in Car-o-H-na. After his death there lived 
in South Car-o-H-na a wise young woman. She 
showed the people how to raise another plant. 
Her name was Eliza Lucas. 

The father of Miss Lucas did not live in Car-o- 
li-na. He was gov-ern-or of one of the islands of 
the West Indies. Miss Lucas was fond of trying 
new things. She often Q^ot seeds from her father. 
These she planted in South Carolina. 

Her father sent her some seeds of the in-di-go 
plant. She sowed some of -these in March. But 
there came a frost. The in-di-go plant cannot 
stand frost. Her plants all died. 

But Miss Lucas did not give up. She sowed 
some more seeds in April. These grew very 
well until a cut-worm found them. The worm 
wished to try new things, too. So he ate off the 
in-di-go plants. 

But Miss Lucas was one of the people who try, 
try again. She had lost her indigo plants twice. 
Once more she sowed some of the seed. This 
time the plants grew very well. 

Miss Lucas wrote to her father about it. He 



■5 



sent her a man who knew how to sfet the indigo 
out of the plant. 

The man tried not to show Miss Lucas how to 
make the indigo. He did 
not wish the people in 
South Carolina to learn 
how to make it. He was 
afraid his own people 
would not get so much 
for their indigo. 

So he would not ex- 
plain just how it ought 
to be done. He spoiled 
the indigo on purpose. 

But Miss Lucas watched 
him closely. She found 
out how the indio'o ouoht 
to be made. Some of her 
fathers land in South 
Carolina was now planted 
with the indigo plants. 

Then Miss Lucas was 
married. She became 

Mrs. Pinck-ney. Her father gave her all the indigo 
growing on his land in South Carolina. It was all 
saved for seed. Some of tlie seed Mrs. Pinck-ney 
o'ave to her friends. Some of it her husband sowed. 




Indigo Plant. 



26 



It all grew, and was made into that blue dye that we 
call indigo. When it is used in washing clothes, it 



is called bluing. 



In a few years, more than a million pounds of 
indigo were made in South Carolina every year. 
Many people got rich by it. And it was all because 
Miss Lucas did not give up. 



FRANKLIN HIS OWN TEACHER. 

Few people ever knew so many things as Frank- 
lin. Men said, " How did he ever learn so many 
things ? " For he had been a poor boy who had 
to work for a living. He could not go to school 
at all after he was ten years old. 

His father made soap and candles. Little Ben 
Frank-lin had to cut wicks for the candles. He 
also filled the candle molds. And he sold soap 
and candles, and ran on errands. But when he was 
not at work he spent his time in reading good 
books. What little money he got he used to buy 
books with. 

He read the old story of " Pil-grinVs Prog-ress," 
and liked it so well that he bought all the other 
stories by the same man. But as he wanted more 
books, and had not money to buy them, he sold 



27 

all of these books. The next he bousfnt were some 
little his-to-ry books. These were made to sell very 
cheap, and they were sold by peddlers. He man- 
aged to l3uy forty or fifty of these little books of 
his-to-ry. 

Another way that he had of learning was by 
seeing things with his own eyes. His father took 
him to see car-pen-ters at work with their saws and 
planes. He also saw masons laying bricks. And 
he went to see men making brass and copper 
kettles. And he saw a man with a turning lathe 
making the round legs of chairs. Other men were 
at work making knives. Some things people learn 
out of books, and some things they have to see for 
them-selves. 

As he was fond of books, Ben's father thought 
that it would be a good plan to send him to learn 
to print them. So the boy went to work in his 
brother's printing office. Here he passed his spare 
time in reading. He borrowed some books out of 
the stores w^here books were sold. * He would sit 
up a great part of the night sometimes to read one 
of these books. He wished to return it when the 
book-store opened in the morning. One man who 
had many books lent to Ben such of his books as 
he wanted. 

It was part of the bargain that Ben's brother 



28 



should pay his board. The boy offered to board 
himself if his brother would o-ive him half what it 

«r3 




Franklin at Study. 



cost to pay for his board. His brother was glad to 
do this, and Ben saved part of the money and 



29 

bought books with it. He was a healthy boy, and it 
did not hurt him to hve mostly on bread and but- 
ter. Sometimes he bought a little pie or a handful 
of raisins. 

Long before he was a man, people said, ^' How 
much the boy knows ! " This was because — 

He did not waste his time. 

He read good books. 

He saw things for himself. 



HOW FRANKLIN FOUND OUT THINGS. 

Frank-lin thought that ants know how to tell 
things to one another. He thought that they 
talk by some kind of signs. When an ant has 
found a dead fly too big for him to drag away, he 
will run off and get some other ant to help him. 
Frank-lin thought that ants have some way of 
telling other ants that there is w^ork to do. 

One day he found some ants eating mo-las-ses 
out of a little jar in a closet. He shook them out. 
Then he tied a string to the jar, and hung it on 
a nail in the ceilinsf. But he had not o-ot all 
the ants out of the jar. One little ant liked 
sweet things so well that he staid in the jar, and 
kept on eating like a greedy boy. 



30 




Ants talking (magnified). 



At last when this greedy ant had eaten all that 
he could, he started to go home. Frank-lin saw 
him climb over the rim of the jar. Then the ant 
ran down the outside of the jar. But when he got 
to the bottom, he did not find any shelf there. 
He went all round the jar. There was no way to 

o^et down to the 
floor. The ant ran 
this way and that 
way, but he could 

An Ant's Feeler (magnified). ^^^^ ^.^^ doWU. 

At last the greedy ant thought he would see if 
he could go up. He climbed up the string to the 
ceilimr. Then he went down the wall. He came 
to his own hole at last, no doubt. 

After a while he got hungry again, perhaps. 




He thought 
the end of a 
told the other 
know that 
they could 
In about 
gone up the 
of ants going 
marched in 
Soon there 
the string, 
p'oino- down 
The ants in 
ing up the 
home. Do 
ant told the 
And did he 
a strino: by 
And did he 




about that jar of sweets at 
string. Then perhaps he 
ants. Maybe he let them 
there was a string by which 
get down to the jar. 
half an hour after the ant had 
string, Franklin saw a swarm 
down the string. They 
a line, one after another, 
were two lines of ants on 
The ants in one line were 
to get at the sweet food, 
the other line were march- 
other side of the string to go 
you think that the greedy 
other ants about the jar.f^ 
tell them that there was 
which an ant could get there ? 
-^ tell it by speaking, or by 
signs that he made 
with his feelers ? 

If you watch two 
ants when they meet, 
you will see that they 
touch their feelers to- 
gether, as if they said 
" Good-morning ! " 



32 



FRANKLIN ASKS THE SUNSHINE SOME- 
THING. 

One day F'ranklin was eating dinner at the 
house of a friend. The lady of the house, when 
she poured out the coffee, found that it was not 
hot. 

She said, " I am sorry that the coffee is cold. 
It is because the servant forgot to scour the 
coffee-pot. Coffee gets cold more quickly when 
the coffee-pot is not bright." 

This set Franklin to thinking. He thought that 
a black or dull thing would cool more quickly 
than a white or bright one. That made him think 
that a black thing would take in heat more quickly 
than a white one. 

He wanted to find out if this were true or not. 
There was no-body who knew, so there was 
no-body to ask. But Franklin thought that he 
would ask the sunshine. Maybe the sunshine 
would tell him whether a black thing would heat 
more quickly than a w^hite thing. 

But how could he ask the sunshine? 

There was snow on the ground. Franklin spread 
a white cloth on the snow. Then he spread a black 
cloth on the snow near the white one. When he 
came to look at them, he saw that the snow under 



33 

the black cloth melted away much sooner than 
that under the white cloth. 

That is the way that the sunshine told him that 
black would take in heat more quickly than white. 
After he had found this out, many people got white 
hats to wear in the summer time. A white hat is 
cooler than a black one. 

Some time w^hen there is snow on the ground, 
you can take a white and a black cloth and ask the 
sunshine the same question. 

FRANKLIN AND THE KITE. 

When Franklin wanted to know w^hether the 
ants could talk or not, he asked the ants, and they 
told him. When he wanted to know some-thing 
else, he asked the sunshine about it, as you have 
read in another story. That is the way that 
Franklin came to know^ so many things. He 
knew^ how to ask questions of every-thing. 

Once he asked the light-ning a question. And 
the light-ning gave him an answ^er. 

Before the time of Franklin, people did not know 
what light-ning was. They did not know w^hat 
made the thunder. Franklin thought much about 
it. At last he proved what it was. He asked the 
lightning a question, and made it tell what it was. 

EGGL. GT. A.MF.R. — ^ 



34 

To tell you this story, I shall have to use one 
big word. Maybe it is too big for some of my 
little friends that will read this book. Let us 
divide it into parts. Then you will not be afraid 
of it. The big word is e-lec-tric-i-ty. 

Those of you who live in towns have seen the 
streets lighted by e-lec-tric-i-ty. But in Franklin's 
time there were no such lights. People knew very 
little about this strange thing with a big name. 

But Franklin found out many things about it 
that nobody had ever known before. He began 
to think that the little sparks he got from, e-lec-tric- 
i-ty were small flashes of lightning. He thought 
that the little cracking sound of these sparks was 
a kind of baby thunder. 

So he thought that he would try to catch a little 
bit of lightning. Perhaps he could put it into one 
of the little bottles used to hold e-lec-tric-i-ty. Then 
if it behaved like e-lec-tric-i-ty, he would know what 
it was. But catching lightning is not easy. How 
do you think he did it ? 

First he made a kite. It was not a kite just like 
a boy's kite. He wanted a kite that would fly 
when it rained. Rain would spoil a paper kite in 
a minute. So Franklin used a silk hand-ker-chief 
to cover his kite, instead of paper. 

He put a little sharp-pointed wire at the top of 



35 



^ 




Franklin's Discovery. 




his kite. This was a kind of Hght- 
ning rod to draw the Hghtning into the 
kite. His kite string was a common 



> 



Xhis 



\ 



w 



hemp string. To this he tied a key, 

because Hghtning will follow metal. 

The \ end of the string that he held in 

hand \ was a silk ribbon, which was tied 

^ to the hemp \ string of the kite. E-lec-tric- 

i-ty will not \ follow silk. 

One nio^ht \ when there was a storm 
coming, he went \ out with his son. They 
stood under a cow " shed, and he sent his 
kite up in the air. 

After a while he held his knuckle to the key. 
A tiny spark flashed between the key and his 
knuckle. It was a little flash of lightning. 

Then he took his little bottle fixed to hold e-lec- 
tric-i-ty. He filled it with the e-lec-tric-i-ty that came 
from the key. He carried home a bottle of light- 
ning. So he found out what made it thunder and 
lighten. 

After that he used to bring the lightning into 
his house on rods and wires. He made the light- 
ning ring bells and do many other strange things. 



FRANKLIN'S WHTSTLK. 

When Franklin was an old man, he wrote a 
cu-ri-ous letter. In 
that letter he told a 
story. It was about 
some-thing that hap- 
pened to him when 
he was a boy. 

Here is the story 
put into verses, so 
that you will re-mem- 
ber it better. Some 
day you can read the 
story as Franklin told 
it himself. You will 
hear people say, "He 
paid too much for 
the whistle." The saying came from this story. 




TOO MUCH FOR THF WHISTLE. 

As Ben with pennies in his pocket 

Went strolling down the street, 
" Toot-toot ! toot-toot ! " there came a whistle 

From a boy he chanced to meet, 



38 

Whistling fit to burst his buttons, 
Blowing hard and stepping high. 

Then Benny said, " I'll buy your whistle ; " 
But " Toot! toot-toot ! " was the reply. 

But Benny counted out his pennies. 
The whistling boy began to smile ; 

With one last toot he gave the whistle 
To Ben, and took his penny pile. 

Now homeward goes the whistling Benny, 

As proud as any foolish boy. 
And in his pockets not a penny. 

But in his mouth a noisy toy. 

" Ah, Benny, Benny ! " cries his mother, 
" I cannot stand your ugly noise." 

" Stop, Benny, Benny ! " says his father, 
" I cannot talk, you drown my voice." 

At last the whistling boy re-mem-bers 

How much his money might have bought. 

" Too many pennies for a whistle," 
Is little Benny's ugly thought. 

Too many pennies for a whistle 

Is what we all pay, you and I, 
Just for a little foolish pleasure 

Pay a price that's quite too high. 



39 



JOHN STARK AND THE INDIANS 

John Stark was a famous gen-er-al in the Rev-o- 
lu-tion. But this story is not about the Rev-o-lu- 
tion. It is about Stark before he became a soldier. 

When he was a young man, Stark went into the 
woods. His brother and two other young men 
were with him. They Hved in a camp. It was far 
away from any houses. 

The young men set traps for animals in many 
places. They wanted to catch the animals that 
have fur on them. They wanted to get the skins 
to sell. 

The Indians were at war with the white people. 
One day the young men saw the tracks of Indians. 
Then they knew that it was not safe for them to 
stay in the woods any longer. They began to get 
ready to go home. 

John Stark went out to bring in the traps set for 
animals. The Indians found him, and made him 
a pris-on-er. They asked him where his friends were. 

Stark did not wish his friends to be taken. So 
he pointed the wrong way. He took the Indians 
a long way from the other young men. 

But John Stark's friends did not know that he 
was a pris-on-er. When he did not come back, they 



40 

thought that he had lost his way. They fired their 
guns to let him know where they were. 

When the Indians heard the guns, they knew 
where the other hunters were. They went down 
to the river, and waited for them. When one of the 
men came down, they caught him. 

Then John Stark's brother and the other man 
came down the river in a boat. The Indians told 
Stark to call them. They wanted them to come 
over where the Indians were. Then they could 
take them. 

John knew that the Indians were cruel. He 
knew that if he did not do what they told him to, 
they might kill him. But he wished to save his 
brother. He called to his brother to row for the 
other shore. 

When they turned toward the other shore, the 
Indians fired at them. But Stark knocked up two 
of their guns. They did not hit the white men. 
Then some of the other Indians fired. Stark 
knocked up their guns also. But the man that 
was with his brother was killed. 

John now called to his brother, " Run ! for all 
the Indians' guns are empty." 

His brother got away. The Indians were very 
angry with John. They did not kill him. But 
they gave him, a good beating. 






D 
5 

3- 

Cl) 

o 

C 







4^ 



42 

These Indians were from Can-a-da. They took 
their pris-on-ers to their own village. When they 
were coming home, they shouted to let the people 
know that they had prisoners. 

The young Indian war-ri-ors stood in two rows 
in the village. Each prisoner had to run between 
these two rows of Indians. As he passed, every 
one of the Indians hit him as hard as he could 
with a stick, or a club, or a stone. 

The young man who was with Stark was badly 
hurt in running between these lines. But John 
Stark knew the Indians. He knew that they liked 
a brave man. 

When it came his turn to run, he snatched a 
club from one of the Indians. With this club he 
fought his way down the lines. He hit hard, now 
on this side, and now on that. The young Indians 
got out of his way. The old Indians who were 
looking on sat and laughed at the others. They 
said that Stark w^as a brave man. 

One day the Indians gave him a hoe and told 
him to hoe corn. He knew that the Indian war- 
ri-ors would not work. They think it a shame for 
a man to work. Their work is left for slaves and 
women. So Stark pre-tend-ed that he did not 
know how to hoe. He dug up the corn instead of 
the weeds. Then he threw the hoe into the river. 



43 

He said, " That is work for slaves and women." 

Then the Indians were pleased with him. They 
called him the young chief. 

After a while some white men paid the Indians 
a hundred and three dollars to let Stark go home. 
They charged more for him than for the other 
man, because they thought that he must be a young 
chief. Stark went hunting again. He had to get 
some furs to pay back the money the men had paid 
the Indians for him. He took good care that the 
Indians should not catch him again. 

He af-ter-wards became a great fighter against 
the Indians. He had learned their ways while he 
was among them. He knew better how to fight 
them than almost any-body else. 

In the Rev-o-lu-tion he was a gen-er-al. He 
fought the British at Ben-ning-ton, and won a great 
vic-to-ry. 

A GREAT GOOD MAN. 

Some men are great soldiers. Some are great 
law-makers. Some men write great books. Some 
men make great in-ven-tions. Some men are great 
speakers. 

Now you are going to read about a man that 
was great in none of these things. He was not a 



44 

soldier. He was not a great speaker. He was 
never rich. He was a poor school-teacher. He 
never held any office. 

And yet he was a great man. He was great for 
his goodness. 

He was born in France. But most of his life 
was passed in Phil-a-del-phi-a before the Rev-o-lu- 
tion. 

He was twenty-five years old when he became a 
school-teacher. He thought that he could do more 
good in teaching than in any other way. 

School-masters in his time were not like our 
teachers. Children were treated like little animals. 
In old times the school-master was a little kino^. 
He walked and talked as if he knew every-thing. 
He wanted all the children to be afraid of him. 

But Ben-e-zet was not that kind of man. He 
was very gentle. He treated the children more 
kindly than their fathers and mothers did. No- 
body in this country had ever seen a teacher 
like him. 

He built a play-room for the children of his 
school. He used to take them to this room during 
school time for a little a-muse-ment. He man-aged 
each child as he found best. Some he could per- 
suade to be good. Some he shamed into being 
good. But this was very dif-fer-ent from the cruel 



45 

beatings that other teachers of that time gave their 
pupils. 

Of course the children came to love him very 
much. After they grew to be men and women, 
they kept their love for the good little schoolmaster. 
As long as they lived they listened to his advice. 

There were no good school-books in his time. 
He wrote some little books to make learning easier 
to his pupils. He taught them many things not in 
their books. He taught them to be kind to brutes, 
and gentle with one another. He taught them to 
be noble. He made them despise every kind of 
meanness. 

He was a great teacher. That is better than 
being a great soldier. 

Ben-e-zet was a good man in many ways. He 
was the friend of all poor people. Once he found 
a poor man suf-fer-ing with cold for want of a coat. 
He took off his own coat in the street and put it 
on the poor man, and then went home in his shirt 
sleeves. 

In those days negroes were stolen from Af-ri-ca 
to be sold into A-mer-i-ca. Ben-e-zet wrote little 
books against this wrong. He sent these books 
over all the world almost. He also tried to per- 
suade the white men of his own country to be 
honest and kind with the Indians. 



46 



Great men in other countries were pleased with 
his books. They wrote him letters. When any of 
them came to this country, they went to see him. 
They wanted to see a man that was good to every- 
body. His house was a plain one. But great men 
liked to sit at the table of the good schoolmaster. 

There was war between the English and French 
at that time. Can-a-da belonged to the French. 
Our country belonged to the English. There 

was a coun- 
try called 
A-ca-di-a. It 
was a part of 
what is now 
No-va Sco- 
ti-a. The people 




of A-ca-di-a 
French. 



were 



Departure of the Acadians. 



The English took the 

A-ca-di-ans away from 

their homes. They sent 

them to various places. Many families were 

divided. The poor A-ca-di-ans lost their homes 

and all that they had. 

Many hundreds of these people were sent to 
Phil-a-del-phi-a. Benezet became their friend. As 
he was born in France, he could speak their Ian- 



47 

guage. He got a large house built for some 
of them to stay in. He got food and clothing 
for them. He helped them to get work, and did 
them good in many other ways. 

One day Benezet's wife came to him with a 
troubled face. She said, " There have been thieves 
in the house. Two of my blankets have been 
stolen." 

" Never mind, my dear," said Benezet, " I gave 
them to some of the poor A-ca-di-ans." 

One old Acadian was afraid of Benezet. He 
did not see why Benezet should take so much 
trouble for other people. He thought that Benezet 
was only trying to get a chance to sell the Aca- 
dians for slaves. When Benezet heard this, he had 
a good laugh. 

Many years after this the Rev-o-lu-tion broke 
out. It brought trouble to many people. Benezet 
helped as many as he could. 

After a while the British army took Phil-a-del- 
phi-a. They sent their soldiers to stay in the 
houses of the people. The people had to take 
care of the soldiers. This was very hard for the 
poor people. 

One day Benezet saw a poor woman. Her face 
show^ed that she was in trouble. 

"Friend, what is the matter?" Benezet said to her. 



48 

She told him that six soldiers of the British 
army had been sent to stay in her house. She 
was a washer-woman. But while the soldiers 
filled up the house she could not do any washing. 
She and her children were in want. 

Benezet went right away to see the gen-er-al that 
was in command of the soldiers. The good man 
was in such a hurry that he forgot to get a pass. 
The soldiers at the gen-er-al's door would not let 
him go in. 

At last some one told the gen-er-al that a queer- 
looking fellow wanted to see him. 

" Let him come up," said the general. 

The odd little man came in. He told the general 
all about the troubles of the poor washer-woman. 
The general sent word that the soldiers must not 
stay any longer in her house. 

The general liked the kind little man. He told 
him to come to see him again. He told the soldiers 
at his door to let Benezet come in when-ever he 
wished to. 

Soon after the Rev-o-lu-tion was over, Benezet 
was taken ill. When the people of Phil-a-del-phi-a 
heard that he was ill, they gathered in crowds about 
his house. Every-body loved him. Every-body 
wanted to know whether he was better or not. 
At last the doctors said he could not get well. 



J 



49 



Then the people wished to see the good man once 
more. The doors were opened. The rooms and 
halls of his house were filled with people coming 
to say good-bye to Benezet, and going away 



agam. 



When he was buried, it seemed as if all Phil-a-del- 
phi-a had come to his fu-ner-al. The rich and the 
poor, the black and the white, crowded the streets. 
The city had never seen so great a fu-ner-al. 

In the company was an A-mer-i-can general. 
He said, " I w^ould rather be An-tho-ny Benezet 
in that coffin than General Wash-ing-ton in all his 
glory." 

PUTNAM AND THE WOLF. 

Putnam was a brave soldier. He fought many 
battles against the Indians. After that he became 
a general in the Revolution. But this is a story 
of his battle with a wolf. It took place when he 
was a young man, before he was a soldier. 

Putnam lived in Con-nect-i-cut. ^ In the woods 
there were still a few wolves. One old wolf came 
to Putnam's neigh-bor-hood every winter. She 
always brought a family of young wolves with 
her. 

The hunters would always- kill the young wolves. 

EGGL. GT. AMER. — 4 



so 

But they could not find the old mother wolf. She 
knew how to keep out of the way. 

The farmers tried to catch her in their traps. 
But she was too cunning. She had had one good 
lesson when she was young. She had put the toes 
of one foot into a steel trap. The trap had snipped 
them off. After that she was more careful. 

One winter night she went out to get some meat. 
She came to Putnam's flock of sheep and goats. 
She killed some of them. She found it great fun. 

There were no dogs about. The poor sheep 
had nobody to protect them. So the old wolf 
kept on killing. One sheep was enough for her 
supper. But she killed the rest just for sport. 
She killed seventy sheep and goats that night. 

Putnam and his friends set out to find the old 
sheep killer. There were six men of them. They 
agreed that two of them should hunt for her at 
a time. Then another two should begin as soon 
as the first two should stop. So she would be 
hunted day and night. 

The hunters found her track in the snow. 
There could be no mistake about it. The track 
made by one of her feet was shorter than those 
made by the other feet. That was because one of 
her feet had been caught in a trap. 

The hunters found that the old wolf had gone 



51 

a long way off. Perhaps she felt guilty. She 
must have thought that she would be hunted. 
She had trotted away for a whole night. 

Then she turned and went back again. She was 
getting hungry by this time. She wanted some 
more sheep. 

The men followed her tracks back ai^ain. The 
dogs drove her into a hole. It was not far from 
Putnam's house. 

All the farmers came to help catch her. They 
sent the dogs into the cave where the wolf was. 
But the wolf bit the dogs, and drove them out again. 

Then the men put a pile of straw in the mouth 
of the cave. They set the straw on fire. It filled 
the cave with smoke. But Mrs. Wolf did not come 
out. 

Then they burned brim-stone in the cave. It 
must have made the wolf sneeze. But the cave 
was deep. She went as far in as she could, and 
staid there. She thought that the smell of brim- 
stone was not so bad as the dogs and men who 
wanted to kill her. 

Putnam wanted to send his negro into the cave 
to drive out the wolf. But the ne2:ro thouQiht that 
he would rather stay out. 

Then Putnam said that he would ^■o in him- 
self. He tied a rope to his legs. Then he got 



52 

some pieces of birch-bark. He set fire to these. 
He knew that wild animals do not like to face 
a fire. 

He got down on his hands and knees. He held 
the blazing bark in his hand. He crawled through 
the small hole into the cave. There was not room 
for him to stand up. 

At first the cave went downward into the 
ground. Then it was level a little way. Then 
it went upward. At the very back of this part 
of the cave was the wolf. Putnam crawled up 
until he could see the wolf's eyes. 

When the w^olf saw the fire, she gave a sudden 
growl. Putnam jerked the rope that was tied to 
his leg. The men outside thought that the wolf 
had caught him. They pulled on the other end 
of the rope. 

The men pulled as fast as they could. When 
they had drawn Putnam out, his clothes were torn. 
He was badly scratched by the rocks. 

He now got his gun. He held it in one hand. 
He held the burning birch-bark in the other. He 
crawled into the cave again. 

When the wolf saw him coming again, she was 
very angry. She snapped her teeth. She got 
ready to spring on him. She meant to kill him as 
she had killed his sheep. Putnam fired at her head. 



53 

As soon as his gun went off, he jerked the rope. 
His friends pulled him out. 

He waited awhile for the smoke of his gun to 
clear up. Then he went in once more. He wanted 
to see if the wolf was dead. 

He found her lying down. He tapped her nose 
with his birch-bark. She did not move. He tool- 
hold of her. Then he jerked the rope. 

This time the men saw him come out, bringing 
the dead wolf. Now the sheep would have some 
peace. 









•fi^ 






WASHINGTON AND HIS\HATCHET. 

^/ It was Ar-bor Day in the Mos^syyHill School, 
* ^nd Johnny Little-john had to speakXa piece that 
'P \had^some-thinQr to do with trees. He\ thought it 
VI. would-be a good plan to say some-ming about 
^P -^the little cherry tree that Washino^ton spoiled with 
r^,-n ' his hatch-et. when he was a little boy. VXThis is 

HSV } ■ ■ \ \ \ - \\\-^ra 

'UXf what he saidK^-.^ --^C __^^ ^rS^r^X^ ^ ^.^ 

•M He had a hatch-et — little Geore-e — -mX. 



A hatch-et bright and new 
V And' sharp enough to cut a 

^^^ "- A little stick — in two. 



He hacked and whacked ^and whacked 
and hacked, 

This sturd-y little man; 
He hacked a log and hacked a fence. 

As round about he ran. 

He hacked his father's cher-ry tree 

And made an ug-ly spot ; 
The bark was soft, the hatch-et sharp, 

And little George forgot. 







55 



You know the rest. The father frowned 




!r/^And askea the rea-S0Q::wiy^ 



You\know the. orood old story runs . , 
He/could not tell a lie --^^ ^--^ 

^he^'boy that chopped that 



Soon grew to be a yo 



At work and books he h 
.^ijn . ) And still he/ told Xh^ tr.u 

I^^^The yoirth'became a fa-mdi^man, 
"-^^^^^^ IK\>ov^ six feet in height, 

And when he had s^ood work to do 



r 



-^-^Me^hacked with all his misrht. 

He fought the ar-mies that the king 
Had sent across the sea; 

He bat-tied up and down the land 
To set his country free. 

For seven long years he hacked and 
whacked 




With all his might and main, ^ 
Until the Brit-ish sailed- away 
And did not come a^rain. 




-r- ^ ::^^r=^ 



56 



HOW BENNY WEST LEARNED TO BE A 

PAINTER. 

In old times there lived in Penn-syl-va-ni-a a little 
fellow whose name was Ben-ja-min West. He 
lived in a long stone house. 

He had never seen a picture. The country was 



1 




Painting Baby's Portrait. 



new, and there were not many pictures in it. Ben- 
ny's father was a Friend or Quaker. The Friends 
of that day did not think that pictures were useful 



thinirs to make or to have. 



57 



Before he was seven years old, this little boy 
began to draw pictures. One day he was watch- 
ing the cradle of his sister's child. The baby 
smiled. Benny was _ ,, 
so pleased with her 9^y^^ 
beauty, that he made w 
a picture of her in 
red and black ink. 
The picture of the ^ 
baby pleased his 
mother when she saw it. ^> 
That was very pleasant to 
the boy. 

He made other pictures, 
school he used to draw with a pen 
before he could write. He made pic- 
tures of birds and of animals. Some- 
times he would draw flowers. 

He liked to draw so well, that some- 
times he forofot to do his work. His , 
father sent him to work in the field \Jj 
one day. The father went out to see piower and 
how well he was doing his work. Fruit of the 
Benny was no-where to be found. At ° ^' ^^^^' 
last his father saw him sitting under a large poke- 
weed. He was making pictures. He had squeezed 
the juice out of some poke-berries. The juice of 




58 

poke-berries is deep red. With this the boy had 
made his pictures. When the father looked at 
them, he was surprised. There were portraits of 
every member of the family. His father knew 
every picture. 

Up to this time Benny had no paints nor any 
brushes. The Indians had not all gone away 
from that neigh-bor-hood. The Indians paint their 
faces with red and yellow colors. These colors they 
make them-selves. Sometimes they prepare them 
from the juice of some plant. Sometimes they get 
them by finding red or yellow earth. Some of the 
Indians can make rough pictures with these colors. 

The Indians near the house of Benny's father 
must have liked the boy. They showed him how 
to make red and yellow colors for himself. He 
eot some of his mother's indioo to make blue. 
He now had red, yellow, and blue. By mixing 
these three, the other colors that he wanted could 
be made. 

But he had no brush to paint with. He took 
some lono: hairs from the cat's tail. Of these he 
made his brushes. He used so many of the cat's 
hairs, that her tail began to look bare. Every- 
body in the house began to wonder what was the 
matter with pussy's tail. At last Benny told where 
he o:ot his brushes. 



59 




A cousin of Ben- 
ny's came from the 
city on a visit. He 
saw some of the bo}''s 
drawings. When he 
went home, he sent 
Benny a box of paints. 
With the paints were ^^^'-'"'^ ^ ^^^"^ ^'^"^• 

some brushes. And there was some canvas such 
as pictures are painted on. And that was not all. 
There were in the box six beautiful en-grav-ings. 

The little painter now felt himself rich. He 
was so happy that he could hardly sleep at all. 
At night he put the box that held his treasures 
on a chair by his bed. As soon as daylight came, 
he carried the precious box to the garret. The 
ofarret of -the lono^ stone house was his stu-di-o. 
Here he worked away all day long. He did not 
go to school at all. Perhaps he forgot that there 
was any school. Perhaps the little artist could 
not tear himself away from his work. 

But the schoolmaster missed him. He came to 
ask if Benny was ill. The mother was vexed when 
she found that he had staid awav from school. 
She went to look for the naughty boy. After a 
while she found the little truant. He was hard 
at work in his earret. 



6o 

She saw what he had been doing. He had not 
copied any of his new en-grav-ings. He had made 
up a new picture by taking one person out of one 
en-grav-ing, and another out of another. He had 
copied these so that they made a picture that he 
had thought of for himself. 

His mother could not find it in her heart to 
punish him. She was too much pleased with the 
picture he was making. This picture was not fin- 
ished. But his mother would not let him finish 
it. She was afraid he would spoil it if he did 
anything more on it. 

The good people called Friends did not like the 
making of pictures, as I said. But they thought 
that Benny West had a talent that he ought to 
use. So he went to Phil-a-del-phi-a to study his 
art. After a while he sailed away to It-a-ly to see 
the pictures that great artists had painted. 

At last he settled in England. The King of 
England was at that time the king of this coun- 
try too. The king liked West's pictures. West 
became the king's painter. He came to be the 
most famous painter in England. 

He liked to remember his boyish work. He 
liked to remember the time when he was a little 
Quaker boy making his paints of poke-juice and 
Indian colors. 



6i 



WASHINGTON'S CHRISTMAS GIFT. 

Washington was fighting to set this country- 
free. But the army that the King of England 
sent to fight him was stronger than Washington's 
army. Washington was beaten and driven out of 
Brook-lyn. Then he had to leave New York. 
After that he marched away into New Jersey to 
save his army from being taken. At last he crossed 
the Del-a-ware River. Here he was safe for a while. 

Some of the Hes-sian soldiers that the kine had 
hired to fight against the Americans came to 
Trenton. Trenton is on the Del-a-ware River. 

Washington and his men were on the other side 
of the Del-a-ware River from the Hes-sians. Wash- 
ington's men were dis-cour-aged. They had been 
driven back all the way from Brook-lyn. It was 
winter, and they had no warm houses to stay in. 
They had not even warm clothes. They were 
dressed in old clothes that people had given them. 
Some of them were bare-footed in this cold weather. 

The Hes-sians and other soldiers of the kinor 
were waitins: for the river to freeze over. Then 
they would march across on the ice. They meant 
to fight Washington once more, and break up his 
army. 



62 



But Wash- 



ington was think- 




Marching to Trenton. 



some- 



He was waiting for 
Christmas. He knew 
that the Hessian sol- 
diers on the other side 
of the river would eat 
and drink a great deal 
on Christmas Eve. 

The niofht before 



Christmas came. The Hessians were sino^ino^ and 
drinking in Trenton. But Washington was march- 
ing up the river bank. Some of his bare-foot 
men left blood marks on the snow as they marched. 
The men and cannons were put into flat boats. 
These boats were pushed across the river with 
poles. There were many great pieces of ice in the 
river. But all night long the flat boats were pushed 
across and then back again for more men. 



\ 



63 

It was three o'clock on Christmas mornine when 
the last Americans crossed the river. It was hail- 
ing and snowing, and it was very cold. Two or 
three of the soldiers were frozen to death. 

It was eight o'clock on Christmas morning when 
Washington got to Trenton. The Hessians w^ere 
sleeping soundly. The sound of the American 
drums w^aked them. They jumped out of their beds. 
They ran into the streets. They tried to fight the 
Americans. 

But it was too late. Washington had already 
taken their cannons. His men were firins: these 
at the Hessians. The Hessians ran into the fields 
to get away. But the Americans caught them. 

The battle was soon over. Washinsfton had 

o 

taken nine hundred prisoners. 

This was called the battle of Trenton. It 2:ave 
great joy to all the Americans. It was Washing- 
ton's Christmas gift to the country. 



HOW WASHINGTON GOT OUT OF A TRAP. 

After the battle of Trenton, \\\ashington went 
back across the Delaw^are River. He had not 
men enough to fight the whole British army. 

But the Americans were c^lad when thev heard 



64 

that he had beaten the Hessians. They sent him 
more soldiers. Then he went back across the river- 
to Trenton again. 

There was a British general named Corn-wal-lis. 
He marched to Trenton. He fought against Wash- 
ino^ton. Corn-wal-lis had more men than Washino'ton 
had. Night came, and they could not see to fight. 
There was a little creek between the two armies. 

Washington had not boats enough to carry his 
men across the river. Corn-wal-lis was sure to beat 
him if they should fight a battle the next morning. 

Cornwallis said, " I will catch the fox in the 
morning." 

He called Washington a fox. He thought he 
had him in a trap. Cornwallis sent for some more , 
soldiers to come from Prince-ton in the morning. 
He wanted them to help him catch the fox. 

But foxes sometimes get out of traps. 

When it was dark, Washington had all his camp 
fires lighted. He put men to digging where the 
British could hear them. He made Cornwallis 
think that he was throwing up banks of earth and 
getting ready to fight in the morning. 

But Washington did not stay in Trenton. He 
did not wish to be caught like a fox in a trap. He 
could not get across the river. But he knew a road 
that went round the place where Cornwallis and his 



65 



army were. He took that road and got behind the 
British army. 

It was just Hke John waiting to catch James. 
James is in the house. John is waiting at the front 
door to catch James when he comes out. But 
James slips out by the 
back way. John hears 
him call " Hello ! " 
James has gone round 
behind him and got 
away. 

Washington went 
out of Trenton in the 
darkness. You might 
say that he marched 
out by the back door. 
He left Cornwallis 
watchinof the front 
door. The Ameri- 
cans went away quiet- 
ly. They left a few 
men to keep up the 
fires, and make a 
noise like digging. Before morning these slipped 
away too. 

When morning came, Cornwallis went to catch 
his fox. But the fox was not there. 




"^fi^. 









EGGL. GT. AMER. — 5 



66 

He looked for the Americans. There was 
the place where they had been digging. Their 
camp fires were still burning. But where had 
they gone.^ 

Cornwallis thought that Washington had crossed 
the river by some means. But soon he heard guns 
firing away back toward Prince-ton. He thought 
that it must be thunder. But he found that it was 
a battle. Then he knew that Washington had gone 
to Princeton. 

Washington had marched all night. When he 
got to Princeton, he met the British coming out to 
go to Trenton. They were going to help Cornwal- 
lis to catch Washington. But Washington had 
come to Princeton to catch them. He had a hard 
fight with the British at Princeton. But at last he 
beat them. 

When Cornwallis knew that the Americans had 
gone to Princeton, he hurried there to help his men. 
But it was too late. Washington had beaten the 
British at Princeton, and had gone on into the hills, 
where he was safe. 

The fox had got out of the trap. 



67 



WASHINGTON'S LAST BATTLE. 

Washington had been fighting for seven years 
to drive the British soldiers out of this country. 
But there were still two strong British armies in 
America. 

One of these armies was in New York. It had 
been there for years. The other army was far 
away at York-town in Vir-gin-i-a. The British 
general at York-town was Cornwallis. You have 
read how Washington got away from him at 
Trenton. 

The King of France had sent ships and soldiers 
to help the Americans. But still Washington 
had not enough men to take New York from the 
British. Yet he went on getting ready to attack 
the British in New York. He had ovens built 
to bake bread for his men. He bought hay 
for his horses. He had roads built to draw his 
cannons on. 

He knew that the British in New York would 
hear about what he was doing. He wanted them 
to think that he meant to come to New York and 
fisht them. WHien the British heard what the 
Americans were doing, they got ready for the 
coming of Washington and the French. 



6S 

All at once they found that Washington had 
gone. He and his men had marched away. The 
French soldiers that had come to help him had 
gone with him. 

Nobody knew what it meant. Washington's 
own men did not know where they were going. 
They went from New Jersey into Penn-syl-va-ni-a. 
Then they marched across Penn-syl-va-ni-a. Then 
they went into Mary-land. They marched across 
that State, and then they went into Vir-gin-i-a. 

By this time everybody could tell where Wash- 
ington was going. People could see that he was 
going straight to York-town. They knew that 
Washington was going to fight his old enemy at 
York-town. 

But he had kept his secret long enough. The 
British in New York could not send help to Corn- 
wallis. It was too late. The French ships sailed 
to Vir-gin-i-a, and shut up Yorktown on the side of 
the sea. Washington's men shut it up on the side 
of the land. They built great banks of earth round 
it. On these banks of earth they put cannons. 

The British could not get away. They fought 
bravely. But the Americans and French came 
closer and closer. 

Then the British tried to fio^ht their w^av out. 
But they were driven back. Then Cornwallis tried 



3 



69 

to Q-Qt his men across the river. He wanted to oret 
out by the back door, as Washington had done. 
But the Americans on the other side of the river 
drove them back again. Washington had now 
caught CornwalHs in a trap. 

The Americans fired red-hot cannon balls into 
Yorktown. These set the houses on fire. At last 
Cornwallis had to give up. The British marched 
out and laid down their guns and sw^ords. 

The British army in New York could not fight 
the Americans by itself. So the British gave it up. 
Then there was peace after the long war. The 
British pulled down the British flag and sailed away. 
The country was free at last. 



MARION'S TOWER. 

General Mar-i-on w^as one of the best fighters 
in the Revolution. He was a homely little man. 
He was also a very good man. Another general 
said, " Mar-i-on is good all over." 

The American army had been beaten in South 
Car-o-li-na. Mar-i-on w^as sent there to keep the 
British from taking the w^hole country. 

Marion orot to-sfeth-er a little armv- His men 
had nothinor but rouoh clothes to wear. Thev had 



70 

no guns but the old ones they had used to shoot 
wild ducks and deer with. 

Marion's men wanted swords. There were no 
swords to be had. But Marion sent men to take 
the long saws out of the saw mills. These were 
taken to black-smiths. The black-smiths cut the 
saws into pieces. These pieces they hammered 
out into long, sharp swords. 

Marion had not so many men as the British. 
He had no cannon. He could not build forts. 
He could not stay long in one place, for fear the 
British should come with a strong army and take 
him. He and his men hid in the dark woods. 
Sometimes he changed his hiding place suddenly. 
Even his own friends had hard work to find him. 

From the dark woods he would come out sud- 
denly. He would attack some party of British 
soldiers. When the battle was over, he would go 
back to the woods again. 

When the British sent a strong army to catch 
him, he could not be found. But soon he would 
be fighting the British in some new place. He 
was always playing hide and seek. 

The British called him the Swamp Fox. That 
was because he was so hard to catch. They could not 
conquer the country until they could catch Marion. 
And they never could catch the Swamp Fox. 



71 




At one time Marion came out of the woods to 
take a little British fort. This fort was on the top 
of a high mound. It was one of the mounds built 
a long time ago by the Indians. 

Marion put his men all round the fort, so that 
the men in the fort could not get out to get water. 
He thought that they would have to give 
up. But the men in the fort dug a well 
inside the fort. Then Marion had to ^^-V^I^J, 
think of another plan. 

Marion's men went to the 
woods and cut down stout 
poles. They got a great many 
poles. When night came, they 
laid a row of poles along-side 
one another on the ground. 
Then they laid another row 
across these. Then they laid 
another row on top of the last 
ones, and across the other way again. 

They laid a great many rows of 
poles one on top of another. They 
crossed them this way and that. As 
the night went on, the pile grew 
higher. Still they handed poles to the men on 
top of the pile. 

Before morning came, they had built a kind 




Marion's Tower. 



72 

of tower. It was higher than the Indian 
mound. 

As soon as it was light, the men on Marion's 
tower be2:an to shoot. The British looked out. 
They saw a great tower with men on it. The men 
could shoot down into the fort. The British could 
not stand it. They had to give up. They were 
taken prisoners. 



CLARKE AND HIS MEN. 

At the time of the Revolution there were but 
few people living on the north side of the O-hi-o 
River. But there were many Indians there. These 
Indians killed a great many white people in Ken- 
tuck-y. 

The Indians were sent by British officers to do 
this killino;. There was a British fort at Vin- 
cennes in what is now In-di-an-a. There was 
another British fort or post at Kas-kas-ki-a in what 
is now the State of Il-li-nois. 

Georo^e RoQ:ers Clarke was an American colonel. 
He wanted to stop the murder of the settlers by 
the Indians. He thouo-ht that he could do it bv 
taking the British posts. 

He had three hundred men. They went down the 



71 

O-hi-o River in boats. They landed near the mouth 
of the O-hi-o River. Then they marched a hundred 
and thirty miles to Kas-kas-ki-a. 

Kas-kas-ki-a was far away from the Americans. 
The people there did not think that the Americans 
would come so far to attack them. When Clarke 
got there, they were all asleep. He marched in 
and took the town before they waked up. 

The people living in Kaskaskia were French. By 
treating them well, Clarke made them all friendly 
to the Americans. 

When the British at Vin-cennes heard that Clarke 
had taken Kaskaskia, they thought that they would 
take it back again. But it was winter. All the 
streams were full of water. They could not march 
till spring. Then they would gather the Indians to 
help them, and take Clarke and his men. ■ 

But Clarke thought that he would not wait to be 
taken. He thought that he would just go and take 
the British. If he could manage to get to Vin- 
cennes in the winter, he would not be expected. 

Clarke started with a hundred and seventy men. 
The country was nearly all covered with water. 
The men were in the wet almost all the time. 
Clarke had hard work to keep his men cheerful. 
He did everything he could to amuse them. 

They had to wade through deep rivers. The 



74 



freezing water. 



water was icy cold. But Clarke made a joke of it. 
He kept them laughing whenever he could. 

At one place the men refused to go through the 
Clarke could not per-suade them 
to cross the river. He 
called to him a tall sol- 
dier. He was the very 
tallest man in Clarke's 
little army. Clarke said 
to him, " Take the little 
drummer boy on your 
shoulders." 

The little drummer was 

soon seated high on the 

shoulders of the tall man. 

" Now go ahead ! " said 

Clarke. 

The soldier marched 
into the water. The little 
drummer beat a march 
on his drum. Clarke 
cried out, " Forward ! " 
Then he plunged into the water after the tall 
soldier. All the men went in after him. They 
were soon safe on the other side. 

At another river the little drummer was floated 
over on the top of his drum. 




75 

At last the men drew near to Vin-cennes. They 
could hear the morning and evening gun in the 
British fort. But the worst of the way was yet to 
pass. The Wa-bash River had risen over its banks. 
The water was five miles wide. The men marched 
from one high ground to another through the cold 
water. They caught an Indian with a canoe. In 
this they got across the main river. But there was 
more water to cross. The men were so hungry that 
some of them fell down in the water. They had to 
be carried out. 

Clarke's men got frightened at last, and then they 
had no heart to go any farther. But Clarke re- 
membered what the Indians did when they went to 
war. He took a little gun-powder in his hand. He 
poured water on it. Then he rubbed it on his face. 
It made his face black. 

With his face blackened like an Indian s, he gave 
an Indian war-whoop. The men followed him again. 

The men were tired and hungry. But they soon 
reached dry ground. They were now in sight of the 
fort. Clarke marched his little army round and 
round in such a way as to make it seem that he had 
many men with him. He wrote a fierce letter to the 
British com-mand-er. He behaved like a general 
with a large army. 

After some fio^htino^, the British com-mand-er gave 



76 

up. Clarke's little army took the British fort. This 
brave action saved to our country the land that lies 
between the Ohio River and the Lakes. It stopped 
the sendino- of Indians to kill the settlers in the 
West. 



DANIEL BOONE AND HIS GRAPEVINE 

SWING. 

Daniel Boone was the first settler of Ken-tuck-y. 
He knew all about living in the woods. He knew 
how to hunt the wild animals. He knew how to 
fight Indians, and how to get away from them. 

Nearly all the men that came with him to Ken- 
tuck-y the first time were killed. One was eaten 
by wolves. Some of them were killed by Indians. 
Some of them went into the woods and never came 
back. Nobody knows what killed them. 

Onlv Boone and his brother were left alive. 
They needed some powder and some bullets. 
They wanted some horses. Boone's brother went 
back across the mountains to get these things. 
Boone staid in his little cabin all alone. 

Boone could hear the wolves howl near his cabin 
at night. He heard the panthers scream in the 
woods. But he did not mind being left all alone in 
these dark forests. 



17 

The Indians came to his cabin when he was 
away. He did not want to see these vis-it-ors. He 
did not dare to sleep in his cabin all the time. 
Sometimes he slept under a rocky cliff. Some- 
times he slept in a cane-brake. A cane-brake is a 
large patch of growing canes such as fishing rods 
are made of. 

Once a mother bear tried to kill him. He fired 
his gun at her, but the bullet did not kill her. The 
bear ran at him. He held his long knife out in his 
hand. The bear ran against it and was killed. 

He made long journeys alone in the woods. One 
day he looked back through the trees and saw four 
Indians. They were fol-lowMng Boone's tracks. 
They did not see him. He turned this way and 
that. But the Indians still fol-lowed his tracks. 

He went over a little hill. Here he found a wild 
grape-vine. It was a very long vine, reaching to the 
top of a high tree. There are many such vines in 
the Southern woods. Children cut such vines off 
near the roots. Then they use them for swings. 

Boone had swung on grape-vines when he was a 
boy. He now thought of a way to break his tracks. 
He cut the wild grape-vine off near the root. 
Then he took hold of it. He sprang out into the 
air with all his mis^ht. The Q-reat swino- carried 
him far out as it swung. Then he let go. He fell 



78 



to the ground, and then he ran away in a dif-fer- 
ent di-rec-tion from that in which he had been going. 

When the Indians came 
to the place, they could 
not find his tracks. They 
could not tell which way 
he had gone. He got to 
his cabin in safety. 

Boone had now been 
alone for many months. 
His brother did not get 
back at the time he had set 
for coming. Boone thought 
that his brother might have 
been killed. Boone had not 
tasted anything but meat since 
he left home. He had to get his 
food by shooting animals in the 
woods. By this time he had hardly 
any powder or bullets left. 
One evening he sat by his cabin. He heard 
some one coming. He thought that it might be 
Indians. He heard the steps of horses. He 
looked throuo^h the trees. He saw his brother 
riding on one horse, and leading another. The 
other horse was loaded with powder and bullets 
and clothes, and other things that Boone needed. 




Boone on the Grape 
Vine Swing. 



^ 



79 



DANIEL BOONE'S DAUGHTER AND HER 

FRIENDS. 

Boone and his brother picked out a good place 
in Ken-tuck-y to settle. Then they went home to 
North Car-o-li-na. They per-suad-ed some of their 
neighbors to go with them to Ken-tuck-y. Boone 
built a fort of log houses at the place in Ken-tuck-y 
that he had chosen. The houses all opened into a 
square. The backs of the houses were outward. 
There was no door at the back of a house. These 
backs of the houses, shut up as they were, made the 
wall of the fort. 

Boone had a daughter. She had two friends. 
They were sisters. Their name was Cal-lo-way. 
These three girls went out of the fort one day. 
They got into some canoes. They were playing 
and laughing. 

Sud-den-ly some Indians came out of the bushes. 
They seized the young girls and made them pris- 
oners. They carried them aw^ay into the woods. 
Hours went by, and yet the girls did not come home. 
People w^ent out to look for them. They were 
no-where to be found. Then their fathers and 
mothers knew that the Indians had taken them. 

Boone asked who would help him over-take the 



So 



Indians and get the three girls back. All the men 
in the fort offered to go. But he took with him 
only seven men beside the father of the Cal-lo- 
way girls. 

The Indians were afraid that they would be fol- 
lowed. They took pains to cover up their tracks. 
But the white girls, who were their prisoners, took 
pains to leave signs behind them. Sometimes in 
passing a tree they would break off a switch. One 
of them dropped a piece of blue ribbon. The 
white men found this, and knew that they were on 
the right track. 

The Indians put the girls on a horse to ride. 
The girls pre-tend-ed that they did not know how to 
ride. When they came to a place where the grass 
was thick, one of them would fall off the horse. 
This would amuse the Indians. But it kept them 
from trav-el-ing fast. And it left places where the 
grass was broken. When the white men saw these, 
they knew that the party had gone this way. 

For fifteen days Boone and his friends followed 
these signs. Sometimes they would lose the track. 
Then they would find it again. 

One evening they saw smoke. They knew that 
the Indian camp was just ahead. Boone told his 
men to lie down and get some sleep. 

At midnight Boone and Cal-lo-way went on. 



8i 

They crept up near the Indian camp. They could 
see seventeen Indians asleep near the fire. But 
their dauofhters were not there. 

A little farther on they found another camp. 
Here they could see the three girls asleep. Two 
Indians were near them. One of these Indians was 
asleep. The other was wide awake, keeping watch. 

Boone and Calloway wished to get their daugh- 
ters away without waking the Indians. If the 
Indians had known that the white men were there, 
they would have killed their prisoners. 

Calloway now pointed his gun at the sleeping 
Indian. If he moved, Calloway meant to shoot him. 
Boone went behind the Indian that was awake. He 
wanted to catch hold of him and keep him from 
o^ivino^ an alarm. But the Indian was too watch- 
ful. He sprang to his feet and gave a yell. All 
the Indians came running to see what was the 
matter. 

The two white men did not fire. If they had, 
they and their daughters would all have been killed. 
They pre-tend-ed to have come to beg for their 
daughters. 

At first the Indians were going to kill them on 
the spot. Then they tied them with cords, and 
went to their other camp. 

After talking about it all night, they made up 

EGGL, GT. AMER. — 6 



83 

their minds to put the two men to death. When 
morning came, they took them off into the woods. 
They tied them to two trees. Two Indians were 
chosen to kill them with hatchets. 

Everything was ready. But all at once guns 
were fired from the bushes. Bang, bang ! went 
the 2[uns. Some of the Indians were killed. Bane, 
bang ! went the guns again. Boone's friends had 
come up to find out what was the matter. 

The Indians thought that a large party had 
come. They ran away as fast as they could. They 
left Boone and Calloway tied to the trees. They 
did not have time to take the girls with them. 

The cords that tied Boone and Calloway to the 
trees were soon cut by their friends. They found 
the three girls and started homeward. It was a 
glad day when the two fathers and their three 
daughters got back into the fort. 



DECATUR AND THE PIRATES. 

Nearly a hundred years have passed since the 
ship " Phil-a-del-phi-a " was burned. But the brave 
sailors who did it will never be for-got-ten. 

The people of Trip-o-li in Af-ri-ca were pirates. 
They took the ships of other nations at sea. They 



84 

made slaves of their prisoners. The friends of 
these slaves sometimes sent money to buy their 
freedom. Some countries paid money to these 
pirates to let their ships go safe. 

Our country had trouble with the pirates. This 
trouble brought on a war. Our ships were sent to 
fight against Trip-o-li. 

One of the ships fighting against the pirates was 
called the " Phil-a-del-phi-a." One day she was 
chasing a ship of Trip-o-li. The "Phil-a-del-phi-a" 
ran on the rocks. The sailors could not get her 
off. The pirates came and fought her as she lay 
on the rocks. They took her men prisoners. 
Then they went to work to get her off. After a 
long time they got her into deep water. They took 
her to Tripoli. Our ships could not go there after 
her, because there were so many great cannons on 
the shore near the ship. 

The pirates got the " Philadelphia " ready to go 
to sea. They loaded her cannons. They meant to 
slip out past our ships of war. Then they would 
take a great many smaller American ships. 

But the Americans laid a plan to burn the 
" Philadelphia." It was a very dan-ger-ous thing to 
try to do. The pirates had ships of war near the 
" Philadelphia." They had great guns on the shore. 
There was no way to do it in the day-time. It 



85 

could only be done by stealing into the Bay of 
Tripoli at night. 

The Americans had taken a little vessel from 
the pirates. She was of the kind that is called 
a ketch. She had sails. She also had lonof oars. 
When there was no wind to sail with, the sailors 
could row her with the oars. 

This little ketch was sent one night to burn the 
" Philadelphia." The captain of this boat was 
Ste-phen De-ca-tur. He was a young man, and 
very brave. 

De-ca-tur made his men lie down, so that the 
pirates would not know how many men he had on 
his ketch. Only about ten men were in sight. 
The rest were lying hidden on the boat. 

They came near to the " Philadelphia." It was 
about ten oclock at night. The pirates called to 
them. The pilot of the ketch told them that he 
was from Mal-ta. He told them that he had come 
to sell things to the people of Tripoli. He said 
that the ketch had lost her anchor. He asked 
them to let him tie her to the big ship till morning. 

The pirates sent out a rope to them. But when 
the ketch came nearer, the pirates saw that they 
had been fooled. They cried out, " Americans, 
Americans ! " 

Then the Americans lying down took hold of 



86 

the rope and pulled with all their might, and drew 
the ketch close to the ship. They were so close, 
that the ships cannons were over their heads. 
The pirates could not fire at them. 

The men who had been lying still now rose up. 
There were eighty of them. In a minute they 
were scram-bling up the sides of the big ship. 
Some went in one way, some another. They did 
not shoot. They fought with swords and pikes, 
or short spears. 

Soon they drove the pirates to one side of the 
ship. Then they could hear the pirates jumping 
over into the water. In a few minutes the pirates 
had all gone. 

But the Americans could not stay long. They 
must burn the ship before the pirates on the shore 
should find out what they were doing. 

They had brought a lot of kin-dling on the 
ketch. They built fires in all parts of the ship. 
The fire ran so fast, that some of the men had 
trouble to get off the ship. 

When the Americans got back on the ketch, 
they could not untie the rope that held the ketch 
to the ship. The big ship was bursting into 
flames. The ketch would soon take fire. 

They took swords and hacked the big rope in 
two. Then they pushed hard to get away from 



87 

the fire. The ketch began to move. The sailors 
took the large oars and rowed. They were soon 
safe from the fire. 

All this they had done without any noise. But, 
now that they had got away, they looked back. 
The fire was shooting up toward the sky. The 
men stopped rowing, and they gave three cheers. 
They were so glad, that, they could not help it. 

By this time the pirates on shore had waked up. 
They began to fire great cannon balls at the little 
ketch. One of the balls went through her sails. 
Ah ! how the sailors rowed ! 

The whole sky was now lighted up by the fire. 
The pirates' cannons were thun-der-ing. The can- 
non balls were splashing the water all round the 
ketch. But the Americans got away. At last 
they were safe in their own ships. 

STORIES ABOUT JEFFERSON. 

Thomas Jef-fer-son was one of the great men 
of the Revolution. He was not a soldier. He 
was not a great speaker. But he was a great 
thinker. And he was a great writer. 

He wrote a paper that was the very be-gin-ning 
of the United States. It was a paper that said 
that we would be free from England, and be a coun- 



88 

try by our-selves. We call that paper the Dec-la- 
ra-tion of In-de-pend-ence. 

When he was a boy, Jef-fer-son was fond of boyish 
plays. But when he was tired of play, he took up a 
book. It pleased him to learn things. From the 
time when he was a boy he never sat down to rest 
without a book. 

At school he learned what other boys did. But 
the dif-fer-ence between him and most other boys 
was this : he did not stop w^ith knowing just what 
the other boys knew. Most boys want to learn 
what other boys learn. Most girls would like to 
know what their school-mates know. But Jef-fer-son 
wanted to know a great deal more. 

As a young man, Jefferson knew Latin and 
Greek. He also knew French and Span-ish and 
I-tal-ian. 

He did not talk to show off what he knew. He 
tried to learn what other people knew. When he 
talked to a wagon maker, he asked him about such 
things as a wagon maker knows most about. He 
would sometimes ask how a wagon maker would 
go to work to make a wheel. 

When Jefferson talked to a learn-ed man, he asked 
him about those things that this man knew most 
about. When he talked with Indians, he got them 
to tell him about their lan-guage. That is the way 



89 

he came to know so much about so many things. 
Whenever anybody told him anything worth while, 
he wrote it down as soon as he could. 

One day Jefferson was trav-el-ing. He went on 
horse-back. That was a common way of trav-el-ing 
at that time. He stopped at a country tavern. 
At this tavern he talked with a strans^er who was 
staying there. 

After a while Jefferson rode away. Then the 
stranger said to the land-lord, " Who is that man ? 
He knew so much about law, that I was sure he was 
a lawyer. But when we talked about med-i-cine, he 
knew so much about that, that I thought he must be 
a doctor. And after a while he seemed to know so 
much about re-li-gion, that I was sure he was a min- 
is-ter. Who is he ? " 

The stranger was very much surprised to hear 
that the man he had talked with was Thomas 
Jefferson. 

Jefferson was a very polite man. One day his 
o[rand-son was ridincr with him. Thev met a ne^ro. 
The negro lifted his cap and bowed. Jefferson 
bowed to the negro. But his grand-son did not 
think it worth while to bow. 

Then Jefferson said to his grand-son, '' Do not 
let a poor negro be more of a gcn-tle-man than vou 
are. 



90 

In the Dec-la-ra-tion of I n-de-pend-ence, Jefferson 
wrote these words: "All men are born free and 
equal." He also said that the poor man had the 
same rio^ht as the rich man to live, and to be free, 
and to try to make himself happy. 



1 



A LONG JOURNEY. 

A LONG time ago, when Thomas Jefferson was 
Pres-i-dent, most of the people in this country lived 
in the East. Nobody knew anything about the Far 

West. The only peo- 
ple that lived there 
were Indians. Many 
of these Indians had 
never seen a white man. 
The Pres-i-dent sent 
men to travel into this 
wild part of the coun- 
try. He told them to 
go up to the upper 
end of the Mis-sou-ri 
River. Then they were 
to go across the Rocky 
Mountains. They were to keep on till they got 
to the Pa-cif-ic O-cean. Then they were to come 




An Elk. 



91 

back again. They were to find out the best way 
to get through the mountains. And they were 
to find out what kind of people the Indians in that 
country were. They were also to tell about the 
animals. 

There were two captains of this company. Their 
names were Lewis and Clarke. There were forty- 
five men in the party. 

They were gone two years and four months. 
For most of that time they did not see any white 
men but their own party. They did not hear a 
word from home for more than two years. 

They got their food mostly by hunting. They 
killed a great many buf-fa-loes and elks and deer. 
They also shot wild geese and other large birds. 
Sometimes they had nothing but fish to eat. Some- 
times they had to eat wolves. When they had no 
other meat, they were glad to buy dogs from the 
Indians and eat them. Sometimes they ate horses. 
They became fond of the meat of dogs and 
horses. 

When they w^ere very hungry, they had to live 
on roots if they could get them. Some of the 
Indians made a kind of bread out of roots. The 
white men bought this when they could not get 
meat. But there were days when they did not 
have anything to eat. 



92 

They were very friendly with the Indians. One 
day some of the men went to make a visit to an 

Indian village. The 



1 



^ v.XXS^^X>»^S& 



Indians gave them 
something to eat. 

In the Indian wig- 
wam where they were, 
there was a head of a 
dead buf-fa-lo. When 
dinner was over, the 
Indians filled a bowl 
full of meat. They 
set this down in front 
of the head. Then 
they said to the head, 
" Eat that." 

The Indians be- 
lieved, that, if they 
treated this buf-fa-lo 
head po-lite-ly, the live 
buf-fa-loes would come 
to their hunting 
ground. Then they 
would have plenty of 
meat. They think the spirit of the buf-fa-lo is a 
kind of a god. They are very careful to please 
this god. 




Feeding the Spirit of the Buffalo. 



93 



CAPTAIN CLARKE'S BURNING GLASS. 

The Indians among whom Captain Clarke and 
Captain Lewis traveled had many strange ways of 
doing things. They had nothing like our matches 
for making fire. One tribe of Indians had this 
way of lighting a fire. An Indian would lay down 
a dry stick. He would rub this stick with the end 
of another stick. After a while this rubbine would 
make something like saw-dust on the stick that was 
lying down. The Indian would keep on rubbing 
till the wood grew hot. Then the fine wood dust 
would smoke. Then it would burn. The Indian 
would put a little kin-dling wood on it. Soon he 
would have a large fire. 

In that time the white people had not yet found 
out how to make matches. They lighted a fire by 
striking a piece of flint against a piece of steel. 
This would make a spark of fire. By letting this 
spark fall on something that would burn easily, 
they started a fire. 

White men had another way of lighting a fire 
when the sun was shinino". Thev used what was 
called a burning glass. This was a round piece of 
glass. It was thick in the middle, and thin at the 
edge. When you held up a burning glass in the 



94 







sun, it drew the sun's heat so as to make a httle hot 
spot. If you put paper under this spot of hot sun- 
shine, it would burn. Men could light the to-bac-co 
in their pipes with one of these glasses. 

Captain Clarke had something funny happen to 

him on account of his burn- 
ing glass. He had walked 
ahead of the rest of his 
men. He sat down on a 
rock. There were some In- 
dians on the other side of the 
river. They did 
not see the captain. 
Captain Clarke 
saw a large bird 
called a crane fly- 
ing over his head. 
He raised his gun 
and shot it. 
The Indians on the 
other side of the river 
had never seen a white man in their lives. They 
had never heard a gun. They used bow^s and 
arrows. 

They heard the sound of Clarke's gun. They 
looked up and saw the large bird falling from the 
sky. It fell close to where Captain Clarke sat. Just 




Cranes. 



95 



as It fell they caught sight of Captain Clarke sitting 
on the rocks. They thought they had seen him 
fall out of the sky. They thought that the sound 
of his oun was a sound like thunder that was made 
when he came down. 

The Indians all ran away as fast as they could. 
They went into their wig-wams and closed them. 

Captain Clarke wished to be friendly with them. 
So he got a canoe and paddled to the other side of 
the river. He came to the Indian houses. He 
found the flaps which they use for doors shut. He 
opened one of them and went in. The Indians 
were sitting down, and they w^ere all crying and 
trembling. 

Among the Indians the sign of peace is to smoke 
to-geth-er. Captain Clarke 
held out his pipe to them. 
That was to say, "I am 
your friend." He shook 
hands with them and gave 
some of them presents. 
Then they were not so 
much afraid. 

He wished to light his 
pipe for them to smoke. So 
he took out his burning glass. He held it in the 
sun. He held his pipe under it The sunshine 




Lighting a Pipe with a 
Burning Glass. 



96 

was drawn to-geth-er into a bright little spot on the 
to-bac-co. Soon the pipe began to smoke. 

Then he held out his pipe for the Indians to 
smoke with him. That is their way of making 
friends. But none of the Indians would touch the 
pipe. They thought that he had brought fire down 
from heaven to light his pipe. They were now sure 
that he fell dow^n from the sky. They were more 
afraid of him than ever. 

At last Captain Clarke's Indian man came. He 
told the other Indians that the w^iite man did not 
come out of the sky. Then they smoked the pipe, 
and w^ere not afraid. 

QUICKSILVER BOB. 

Robert Fulton was the man who set steam-boats 
to running on the rivers. Other men had made such 
boats before. But Fulton made the first good one. 

When he was a boy, he lived in the town of Lan- 
cas-ter in Penn-syl-va-ni-a. Many guns were made 
in Lan-cas-ter. The men who made these guns put 
little pictures on them. That was to make them 
sell to the hunters who liked a gun with pictures. 
Little Robert Fulton could draw very well for a 
boy. He made some pretty little drawings. These 
the gun makers put on their guns. 



97 

Fulton went to the gun shops a great deal. He 
liked to see how things were made. He tried to 
make a small air gun for himself. 

He was always trying to make things. He got 
some quick-sil-ver. He was trying to do something 
with it. But he would not tell what he wanted to 
do. So the gun-smiths called him Quick-sil-ver Bob. 

He was so much in-ter-est-ed in such things, that 
he sometimes neg-lect-ed his lessons. He said that 
his head was so full of new notions, that he had not 
much room left for school learning. 

One morning he came to school late. 

" What makes you so late ? " asked the teacher. 

" I w^ent to one of the shops to make myself a 
lead pencil,'' said little Bob. " Here it is. It is the 
best one I ever had." 

The teacher tried it, and found it very good. 
Lead pencils in that day were made of a long piece 
of lead sharpened at the end. 

Quick-sil-ver Bob was a very odd little boy. He 
said many cu-ri-ous things. Once the teacher pun- 
ished him for not getting his lessons. He rapped 
Robert on the knuckles with a fer-ule. Robert 
did not like this any more than any other boy would. 

'' Sir," said the boy, " I came here to have some- 
thino- beaten into mv head, not into mv knuckles." 

In that day people used to light candles and stand 

EGCL. err. AMER. — 7 



98 



them in the window on the Fourth of July. These 
candles in every window lighted up the whole 
town. But one year candles were scarce and high. 

The city asked the peo- 
ple not to light up their 
windows on the Fourth. 
Bob did not like to 
miss the fun of his 
Fourth of July. He 
went to work to make 
something like rockets 
or Roman candles. It 
was a very dan-ger-ous 
business for a bov. 

" What are you doing, 
Bob } " some one asked 
him. 

" The city does not 
want us to burn our can- 
dles on the Fourth," he 
said. " I am going to 
shoot mine into the air." 
He used to o'o fishins^ with a boy named Chris 
Gumpf. The father of Chris went with them. 
They fished from a flat boat. The two boys 
had to push the boat to the fishing place with 
poles. 




99 

" I am tired of poling that boat," said Robert to 
Chris one day when they came home. 

So he set to work to think out a plan to move the 
boat in an easier way than by poles. He whittled 
out the model of a tiny paddle wheel. Then he 
went to work with Chris Gumpf, and thet' made a 
larger paddle wheel. This they set up in the fish- 
ing boat. The wheel was turned by the boys with 
a crank. They did not use the poles any more. 



THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. 

The first good steam-boat was built in New 
York. She was built by Robert Fulton. Her 
name was " Cler-mont." When the people saw her, 
they laughed. They said that such a boat would 
never go. For thousands of years boat-men had 
made their boats go by using sails and oars. 
People had never seen any such boat as this. It 
seemed foolish to believe that a boat could be 
pushed along by steam. 

The time came for Fulton to start his boat. A 
crowd of people were standing on the shore. The 
black smoke was coming out of the smoke-stack. 
The people were laughing at the boat. They were 
sure that it would not go. 



lOO 



At last the boat's wheels began to turn round. 
Then the boat began to move. There were no 
oars. There were no sails. But still the boat kept 




moving 



Seeing the First Steam-boat. 



Faster and faster 

she wTnt. All the 

people now saw that 

she could go by steam, They did not laugh any 

more. They began to cheer. 

The little steam-boat ran up to Al-ba-ny. The 
people who lived on the river did not know what 
to make of it. They had never heard of a steam- 
boat. They could not see what made the boat go. 

There were many sailing vessels on the river. 
Fulton's boat passed some of these in the night. 



lOI 

The sailors were afraid when they saw the fire and 
smoke. The sound of the steam seemed dreadful 
to tliem. Some of them went down-stairs in 
their ships for fear. Some of them went ashore. 
Perhaps they thought it was a living animal that 
would eat them up. 

But soon there were steam-boats on all the large 
rivers. 

WASHINGTON IRVING AS A BOY. 

The Revolution was about over. Americans 
were very happy. Their country w^as to be free. 

At this time a little boy was born in New York. 
His family was named Ir-ving. What should this 
little boy be named ? 

His mother said, " Washington's work is done. 
Let us name the baby Washington." So he was 
called Washington Ir-ving. 

When this baby grew to be a little boy, he was 
one day walking with his nurse. The nurse was a 
Scotch orirl. She saw General W^ashinorton q-q 
into a shop. She led the little boy into the 
shop also. 

The nurse said to General Washington, '' Please, 
your Honor, here is a bairn that is named for you." 

" Bairn " is a Scotch word for child. 



102 



R 



Washington put his hand on the Httle boy's head 
and gave him his blessing. When Ir-ving became 
an author, he wrote a hfe of Washington. 

Little Irving was a merry, playful boy. He 
was full of mischief. 

Sometimes he would climb out of a window to 

the roof of his fa- 
ther's house. From 
this he would go to 
roofs of other houses. 
Then the little rascal 
would drop a pebble 
down a neigh-bor's 
chimney. Then he 
would hurry back 
and get into the win- 
dow again. He would 
wonder what the peo- 
ple thought when the 
pebble came rattling 
down their chimney. 
Of course he was 
punished when his tricks were found out. But he 
was a fa-vor-ite with his teacher. With all his 
faults, he would not tell a lie. The teacher called 
the little fellow " General." 

In those days naughty school-boys were whipped. 




Irving in Mischief. 



I03 

Irving could not bear to see another boy suffer. 
When a boy was to be whipped, the girls were sent 
out. Irving always asked the schoolmaster to let 
him go out with the girls. 

Like other boys, Irving w^as fond of stories. 
He liked to read about Sind-bad the Sailor, and 
Rob-in-son Cru-soe. But most of all he liked to 
read about other countries. He had twenty small 
volumes called " The World Dis-played." They 
told about the people and countries of the 
world. Irving read these little books a great 
deal. 

One day the schoolmaster caught him reading 
in school. The master slipped behind him and 
grabbed the book. Then he told Irving to stay 
after school. 

Irving expected a pun-ish-ment. But the master 
told him he w^as pleased to find that he liked to 
read such s^ood books. He told him not to read 
them in school. 

Reading about other countries made Irving wish 
to see them. He thought he would like to travel. 
Like other wild boys, he thought of running away. 
He wanted to go to sea. 

But he knew that sailors had to eat salt pork. 
He did not like salt pork. He thought he would 
learn to like it. When he got a chance, he ate pork. 



I04 

And sometimes he would sleep all night on the 
floor. He wanted to get used to a hard bed. 

But the more he ate pork, the more he disliked 
it. And the more he slept on the floor, the more 
he liked a good bed. So he gave up his foolish 
notion of being a sailor boy. 

Some day you will read Irving's "Sketch Book." 
You will find some famous stories in it. There is 
the story of Rip Van Win-kle, who slept twenty 
years. And there is the funny story of the Head- 
less Horse-man. When you read these a-mus-ing 
stories, you will remember the playful boy who 
became a great author. 




Rip Van Winkle wakes up. 



105 



DON'T GIVE UP THE SKIP. 

Fred was talking to his sister one day. He 
said, — 

"Alice, what makes people say, 'Don't give up 
the ship ' ? " 

Alice said, " I don't know. That's what the 
teacher said to me yes-ter-day when I thought that 
I could not get my lesson." 

"Yes," said Fred, "and that's what father said to 
me. I told him I never could learn to write well. 
He only said, " You must not give up the ship, my 
boy." 

" I haven't any ship to give up," said Alice. 

" And what has a ship to do with my writing ? " 
said Fred. 

" There must be some story about a ship," Alice 
said. 

" Maybe grand-father would know," said Fred. 
" Let's ask him." 

They found their grand-father writing in the 
next room. They did not wish to disturb liim. 
They turned to leave the room. 

But grand-father looked up just then. He smiled, 
and laid down his pen. 

" Did you want something ? " he asked. 



io6 

" We wanted to ask you a question," said Alice. 
" We want to know why people say, ' Don't give 
up the ship.' " 

" We thought maybe there is a story to it," said 
Fred. 

" Yes, there is," said their grandfather. " And I 
know a little rhyme that tells the story." 

" Could you say it to us ? " asked Alice. 

" Yes, if I can think of it. Let me see. How 
does it begin ? " 

Grandfather leaned his head back in the chair. 
He shut his eyes for a moment. He was trying 
to remember. 

" Oh, now I remember it ! " he said. 

Then he said to them these little verses: — 



GRANDFATHER'S RHYME. 

When I was but a boy, 
I heard the people tell 

How gallant Captain Law-rence 
So bravely fought and fell. 

The ships lay close together, 
I heard the people say, 

And many guns were roaring 
Upon that battle day. 



10/ 

A grape-shot struck the captain, 
He laid him down to die : 

They say the smoke of powder 
Made dark the sea and sky. 

The sailors heard a whisper 

Upon the captain's lip: 
The last command of Law-rence 

Was, " Don't give up the ship." 

And ever since that battle 

The people like to tell 
How gallant Captain Law-rence 

So bravely fought and fell. 

When dis-ap-point-ment happens, 
And fear your heart annoys, 

Be brave, like Captain Lawrence — 
And don't give up, my boys ! 



THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 

Everybody in the United States has heard the 
song about the star-span-gled banner. Nearly 
everybody has sung it. It was written by Francis 
Scott Key. 

Key was a young lawyer. In the War of 1812 



io8 

he fought with the American army. The Brit- 
ish landed soldiers in Mary-land. At Bla-dens- 
burg they fought and beat the Americans. Key 
was in this battle on the American side. 

After the battle the British army took Wash- 
ington, and burned the public buildings. Key had 
a friend who was taken prisoner by the British. 
He was on one of the British ships. Key went to 
the ships with a flag of truce. A flag of truce is 
a white flag. It is carried in war when one side 
sends a message to the other. 

When Key got to the British ships, they were sail- 
ing to Bal-ti-more. They were going to try to take 
Bal-ti-more. The British com-mand-er would not 
let Key go back. He was afraid that he would let 
the Americans know where the ships were going. 

Key w^as kept a kind of prisoner while the ships 
attacked Bal-ti-more. The ships tried to take the 
city by firing at it from the water. The British 
army tried to take the city on the land side. 

The ships did their worst firing at night. They 
tried to take the little fort near the city. 

Key could see the battle. He watched the little 
fort. He was afraid that the men in it would give 
up. He was afraid that the fort would be broken 
down by the cannon balls. 

The British fired bomb-shells and rockets at the 



I09 



fort. When these burst, they made a light. By 
this Hght Key could see that the little fort was still 
standinQ^. He could see the flao^ still waving over 
it. He tells this in his song in these words: — 

" And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there." 

But after many hours 
of fiohtinor the British 
became dis-cour-aged. 
They found that they 
could not take the 
city. The ships al- 
most ceased to fire. 

Key did not know 
whether the fort had 
been knocked down or 
not. He could not 
see whether the flag 

was still flying or not. He thought that the Ameri- 
cans might have given up. He felt what he wrote 
in the song : — 

" Oh ! say, does that star-span-gled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?" 

When the break of day came, Key looked toward 
the fort. It was still standing. There was a flag 
flying over it. It grew lighter. He could see 




no 



that it was the American flag. His feelings are 



told in two lines of the song : 



" Tis the star-span-gled banner ; oh, long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ! " 

Key was full of joy. He took an old letter from 
his pocket. The back of this letter had no writing 
on it. Here he wrote the song about the star- 
spangled banner. 

The British com-mand-er now let Key go ashore. 

When he got to Bal- 
timore, he wrote out 
his song. He gave it 
to a friend. This 
friend took it to a 
printing office. But 
the printers had all 
turned soldiers. They 
had all gone to defend 
the city. 

There was one boy 
left in the office. He 
knew how to print. 
He took the verses and printed them on a broad 
sheet of paper. 

The printed song was soon in the hands of the 
soldiers around Baltimore. It was sung in the 




Ill 

streets. It was sung in the the-a-ters. It traveled 
all over the country. Everybody learned to sine;-: — 

" Then con([uer we must, for our cause it is just ; 
And this be our motto — ' In (iod is our trust' — 
And the star-span-gled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave." 



HOW AUDUBON CAME TO KNOW ABOUT 

BIRDS. 

John James Au-du-bon knew more about the 
birds of this country than any man had ever known 
before. He was born in the State of Eou-is-i-a-na. 
His father took him to France when he was a boy. 
He went to school in France. 

The little John James was fond of stud-y-ing 
about wild^animals. But most of all he wished to 
know about birds. Seeing that the boy liked such 
things, his father took pains to get birds and 
flowers for him. 

While he was yet a boy at school, he began to 
gather birds and other animals for himself. He 
learned to skin and stuff them. But his stuffed 
birds did not please him. Their feathers did not 
look bright, like those of live birds. He wanted 
living birds to study. 

His father told him that he could not keep so 



112 

many birds alive. To please the boy he got him 
a book with pictures in it. Looking at these 
pictures made John James wish to draw. He 
thought that he could make pictures that would 
look like the live birds. 

But when he tried to paint a picture of a bird, it 
looked worse than his stuffed birds. The birds he 
drew were not much like real birds. He called 
them a " family of cripples." As often as his birth- 
day came round, he made a bon-fire of his bad pic- 
tures. Then he would begin over again. 

All this time he was learning to draw^ birds. But 
he was not willing to make pictures that were not 
just like the real birds. So when he grew to be a 
man he went to a great French painter whose name 
was David. David taught him to draw and paint 
things as they are. 

Then he came back to this country, and lived 
awhile in Penn-syl-va-nia. Here his chief study 
was the wild creatures of the woods. 

He gathered many eggs of birds. He made 
pictures of these eggs. He did not take birds' 
eggs to break up the nests. He was not cruel. 
He took only what he needed to study. 

He would make two little holes in each egg. 
Then he would shake the egg, or stir it up 
with a little stick or straw, or a long pin. This 



113 

would break up the inside of the egg. Then he 
would blow into one of the holes. That would 
blow the inside of the eo^o- out throusfh the other 
hole. 

These egg shells he strung together by running 
strinofs throuoh the holes. He hunor these strino^s 
of egg shells all over the walls of his room. On 
the man-tel-piece he put the stuffed skins of squir- 
rels, raccoons, o-pos-sums, and other small animals. 
On the shelves his friends could see frogs, snakes, 
and other animals. 

He married a young lady, and brought her to 
live in this mu-se-um with his dead snakes, frogs, 
and strings of birds' eggs. She liked what he did, 
and was sure that he would come to be a great man. 

He made up his mind to write a great book about 
American birds. He meant to tell all about the 
birds in one book. Then in another book he 
would print pictures of the birds, just as large as 
the birds them-selves. He meant to have them 
look just like the birds. 

To do this he must travel many thousands of 
miles. He must live for years almost all of the 
time in the woods. He w^ould have to find and 
shoot the birds, in order to make pictures of them. 
And he must see how the birds lived, and how they 
built their nests, so that he could tell all about 

EGGL. GT. AMEK. — S 



114 

them. It would take a great deal of work and 
trouble. But he was not afraid of trouble. 

That was many years ago. Much of our country 
was then covered with great trees. Au-du-bon 
sometimes went in a boat down a lone-some river. 
Sometimes he rode on horse-back. Often he had 
to travel on foot through woods where there were 
no roads. Many a time he had to sleep out of doors. 

He lost his money and became poor. Sometimes 
he had to paint portraits to get money to live on. 
Once he turned dancing master for a while. But 
he did not give up his great idea. He still studied 
birds, and worked to make his books about Ameri- 
can birds. His wife went to teaching to help make 
a living. 

After years of hard work, he made paintings of 
nearly a thousand birds. That was almost enough 
for his books. But, while he was traveling, two 
large rats got into the box in which he kept his 
pictures. They cut up all his paintings with their 
teeth, and made a nest of the pieces. This almost 
broke his heart for a while. For many nights he 
could not sleep, because he had lost all his work. 

But he did not give up. After some days he 
took his gun, and went into the woods. He said 
to himself, " I will begin over again. I can make 
better paintings than those that the rats spoiled." 



115 

But it took him four long years and a half to find 
the birds, and make the pictures again. 

He was so careful to have his drawings just like 
the birds, that he would measure them in every 
way. Thus he made his pictures just the size of 
the birds themselves. 

At last the great books were printed. In this 
country, in France, and in England, people praised 
the won-der-ful books. They knew that Au-du-bon 
was indeed a great man. 



AUDUBON IN THE WILD WOODS. 

When Au-du-bon was making his great book 
about birds, he had to live much in the woods. 
Sometimes he lived among the Indians. He once 
saw an Indian go into a hollow tree. There was 
a bear in the tree. The Indian had a knife in 
his hand. He fought with the bear in the tree, 
and killed it. 

Au-du-bon could shoot verv well. A friend of 
his one day threw up his cap in the air. He told 
Au-du-bon to shoot at it. When the cap came 
down, it had a hole in it. 

But the hunters who lived in the woods could 
shoot better. Thev would li^ht a candle. Then 



ii6 







Snuffing the Candle. 







one of the hunters would take his gun, and go a 
hundred steps away from the candle. He would 
then shoot at the candle. He would shoot so as 
to snuff it. He would not put out the candle. He 
would only cut off a bit of the wick with the bullet. 
But he would leave the candle burning. 

Once Audubon came near being killed by some 
robbers. He stopped at a cabin where lived an 
old white woman. He found a young Indian in 
the house. The Indian had hurt himself with an 
arrow. He had come to the house to spend the 
night. 

The old woman saw Audubon's fine gold watch. 
She asked him to let her look at it. He put it 
into her hands for a minute. Then the Indian 
passed by Audubon, and pinched him two or three 
times. That was to let him know that the woman 
was bad, and that she might rob him. 

Audubon went and lay down with his hand on 
his gun. After a while two men came in. They 
were the sons of the old woman. Then the old 



it; 

woman sharpened a large knife. She told the 
young men to kill the Indian first, and then to kill 
Audubon and take his watch. She thought that 
Audubon was asleep. But he drew up his gun 
ready to fire. 

Just then two hunters came to the cabin. Au- 
dubon told them what the robbers were oroins: to 
do. They took the old woman and her sons, and 
tied their hands and feet. The Indian, though he 
was in pain from his hurt, danced for joy when he 
saw that the robbers were caught. The woman 
and her sons w^ere afterward punished. . 



HUNTING A PANTHER. 

Audubon was traveling in the woods in Mis-sis- 
sip-pi. He found the little cabin of a settler. He 
staid there for the night. The settler told him 
that there was a panther in the swamp near his 
house. A panther is a very large and fierce ani- 
mal. It is larcje enouQ-h to kill a man. This was 
a very bad panther. It had killed some of the 
settler's dogs. 

Audubon said, " Let us hunt this panther, and 
kill it." 

So the settler sent out for his neigh-bors to come 



ii8 

and help kill the panther. Five men came. Au- 
dubon and the settler made seven. They were all 
on horse-back. 

When they came to the edge of the swamp, each 
man went a dif-fer-ent way. They each took their 
dogs with them to find the track of the wild beast. 
All of the hunters carried horns. Who-ever should 
find the track first was to blow his horn to let the 
others know. 

In about two hours after they had started, they 
heard the sound of a horn. It told them that the 
track had been found. Every man now went toward 
the sound of the horn. Soon all the yelping dogs 
were fol-low-ing the track of the fierce panther. 
The panther was running into the swamp farther 
and farther. 

I suppose that the panther thought that there 
were too many dogs and men for him to fight. All 
the hunters came after the dogs. They held their 
guns ready to shoot if the panther should make 
up his mind to fight them. 

After a while the sound of the dogs' voices 
changed. The hunters knew from this that the 
panther had stopped running, and gone up into a 
tree. 

At last the men came to the place where the dogs 
were. They were all barking round a tree. Far 



119 



up in the tree was the dan-ger-ous beast. The 
hunters came up care-ful-ly. One of them fired. 
The bullet hit the pan- 




'^*-' ' *■// ^1^ 



ther, but 

did not kill him. .M^^ 

The panther sprang 
to the ground, and ran off again. The dogs ran 
after. The men got on their horses, and rode after. 

But the horses were tired, and the men had to 
get down, and follow the dogs on foot. 

The hunters now had to w^ade through little 
ponds of water. Sometimes they had to climb over 
fallen trees. Their clothes were badly torn by the 
bushes. After two hours more, they came to a place 
where the panther had again gone up into a tree. 

This time three of the hunters shot at him. 
The fierce panther came tumbling to the ground. 
But he was still able to fioht. The men fought the 
savage beast on all sides. At last they killed him. 
Then they gave his skin to the settler. They 
wanted him to know that his en-e-mv was dead. 



120 



SOME BOYS WHO BECAME AUTHORS. 



WiL-LiAM CuL-LEN Bry-ant was the first great 
poet in this country. He was a small man. 
When he was a baby, his head was too big for 
his body. His father used to send the baby to 
be dipped in a cold spring every day. The father 
thought that putting his head into cold water 
would keep it from growing. 

Bry-ant knew his letters before he was a year 
and a half old. He began to write rhymes when 
he was a very little fellow. He wanted to be a 
poet. He used to pray that he might be a poet. 
His father printed some verses of his when he was 
,^.., only ten years old. 

Bry-ant wrote many fine poems. Here 
r^ are some lines of his about the bird we 
call a bob-o-link : — 

"Rob-ert of Lin-coln is gayly dressed, 
Wearing a bright black wedding coat ; 
White are his shoulders and white his crest. 
Hear him call in his merry note : 
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, 
Spink, spank, spink ; 
Look, what a nice new coat is mine, 
Sure there was never a bird so fine. 
Chee, chee, chee." 




121 



Haw-thorne was one of our greatest writers of 
stories. He was a pretty boy with golden curls. 
He was fond of all the great poets, and he read 
Shake-speare and Mil-ton and many other poets as 
soon as he was old enough to un-der-stand them. 

Haw-thorne grew up a very hand-some young 
fellow. One day he was walking in the woods. 
He met an old gypsy woman. She had never seen 
anybody so fine-looking. 

" Are you a man, or an angel ? " she asked him. 

Some of Haw-thorne's best books are written for 
girls and boys. One of these is called "The Won- 
der Book." Another of his books for young people 
is " Tan-gle-wood Tales." 

Pres-cott wrote beautiful his-to-ries. When Pres- 
cott was a boy, a school-mate threw a crust of 
bread at him. It hit him in the eye. He became 
almost blind. 

He had to do his writing with a machine. This 
machine was made for the use of the blind. There 
were no type-writ-ers in those days. 

It was hard work to write his-to-rv without o'ood 
eyes. But Pres-cott did not give up. He had a 
man to read to him. It took him ten years to write 
his first book. 

When Prescott had finished his book, he was 



122 



afraid to print it. But his father said, " The man 
who writes a book, and is afraid to print it, is a 
cow-ard." 

Then Prescott printed his book. Everybody 
praised it. When you are older, you will like to 
read his his-to-ries. 



Doctor Holmes, the poet, was a boy full of fan- 
cies. He lived in an old house. 
Soldiers had staid in the 
house at the time of the Revo- 
lution. The floor of one room 
was all battered bv the butts 
of the soldiers' muskets. 

Little Ol-i-ver Holmes used 
to think he could hear soldiers 
in the house. He thought he 
could hear their spurs rattling 
in the dark passages. Some- 
times he thought he could hear 
their swords clanking. 

The little boy was afraid of 
a sign that hung over the side- 
walk. It was a great, big, 
wooden hand. It was the sign 
of a place where gloves were 




made. 



This big hand swung in the air. 



Little 



123 



I 

r 



Ol-i-ver Holmes had to walk under it on his way 
to school. He thought the great fingers would 
grab him some day. Then he thought he would 
never get home again. He even thought that his 
other pair of shoes would be put away till his little 
brother grew big enough to wear them. 

But the big wooden hand never caught him. 

Here are some verses that Doctor Holmes wrote 
about a very old man : — 



" My grand-mam-ma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was hke a rose 

In the snow. 

" But now his nose is thin. 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff; 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a mel-an-chol-y crack 
In his laugh. 




" I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cor-nered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer ! 



124 

" And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now, 
At the old for-sak-en bough 

Where I cling." 



DANIEL WEBSTER AND HIS BROTHER. 

Dan-iel Web-ster was a great states-man. As 
a little boy he was called '' Little Black Dan." 
When he grew larger, he was thin and sickly- 
looking. But he had large, dark eyes. People 
called him "All Eyes." 

He was very fond of his brother E-ze-ki-el. 
E-ze-ki-el was a little older than Dan-iel. Both 
the boys had fine minds. They wanted to go to 
college. But their father was poor. 

Dan-iel had not much strength for work on the 
farm. So little " All Eyes " was sent to school, and 
then to college. E-ze-ki-el staid at home, and 
worked on the farm. 

While Daniel was at school, he was unhappy to 
think that Ezekiel could not o;o to colles^e also. 
He went home on a visit. He talked to Ezekiel 
about going to college. The brothers talked about 
it all night. 



125 

The next day Daniel talked to his father about 
it. The father said he was too poor to send both 
of his sons to college. He said he would lose all 
his little prop-er-ty if he tried to send Ezekiel to 
college. But he said, that, if their mother and 
sisters were willing to be poor, he would send the 
other son to college. 

So the mother and sisters were asked. It 
seemed hard to risk the loss of all they had. It 
seemed hard not to give Ezekiel a chance. They 
all shed tears over it. 

The boys promised to take care of their mother 
and sisters if the prop-er-ty should be lost. Then 
they all agreed that Ezekiel should go to college too. 

Daniel taught school while he was stud-y-ing. 
That helped to pay the expenses. After Daniel was 
through his studies in college, he taught a school 
in order to help his brother. When his school 
closed, he went home. On his way he went round 
to the college to see his brother. Finding that 
Ezekiel needed money, he gave him a hundred 
dollars. He kept but three dollars to get home 
with. 

The father's prop-er-ty was not sold. The two 
boys helped the family. Daniel soon began to 
make money as a lawyer. He knew that his father 
was in debt. He went home to see him. 



126 

He said, " Father, I am going to pay your debts." 

The father said, " You cannot do it, Daniel. 
You have not money enough." 

'' I can do it," said Daniel ; " and I will do it 
before Monday evening." 

When Monday evening came round, the father's 
debts were all paid. 

When Daniel became a famous man, it made 
Ezekiel very happy. But Ezekiel died first. 
When Daniel Web-ster made his greatest speech, 
all the people praised him. 

But Web-ster said, " I wish that my poor brother 
had lived to this time. It would have made him 
very happy." 

WEBSTER AND THE POOR WOMAN. 

When Daniel Webster was a young lawyer, he 
was oroins: home one nio^ht. There was snow on 
the ground. It was very cold. It was late, and 
there was nobody to be seen. 

But after a while he saw a poor woman. She 
was ahead of him. He wondered what had 
brought her out on so cold a night. 

Sometimes she stopped and looked around. 
Then she would stand and listen. Then she would 
go on again. 



127 




Webster and the Poor Woman. 



Webster kept out of her sight. But he watched 
her. After lookino: around, she turned down the 
street in which Webster Hved. She stopped in 



128 

front of Webster's house. She looked around and 
Hstened. 

Webster had put down some loose boards to 
walk on. They reached from the gate to the door 
of his house. After standing still a minute, the 
woman took one of the boards, and went off 
quickly. 

Webster followed her. But he kept out of her 
sight. She went to a distant part of the town. 
She went into a poor little house. 

Webster went home without saying anything 
to the w^oman. He knew that she had stolen the 
board for fire-wood. 

The next day the poor woman got a present. 
It was a nice load of wood. 

Can you guess who sent it to her? 



THE INDIA-RUBBER MAN. 

Many years ago a strange-looking man was 
sometimes seen in the streets of New York. His 
cap was made of In-di-a rubber. So was his coat. 
He wore a rubber waist-coat. Even his cravat 
was of In-di-a rubber. He wore rubber shoes in 
dry weather. People called this man " The In-di-a- 
rubber man." 



129 

His name was Charles Good-year. He was very 
poor. He wms trying to find out liow to make 
India rubber useful. 

India-rubber trees grow in South America. The 
juice of these trees is something hke milk or cream. 
By drying this juice, India rubber is made. 

The Indians in Bra-zil have no glass to make 
bottles with. A long time ago they learned to 
make bottles out of rubber. More than a hundred 
years ago some of these rubber bottles were brought 
to this country. The people in this country had 
never seen India rubber before. They thought 
the bottles made out of it by the Indians very 
cu-ri-ous. 

In this country, rubber was used only to rub out 
pencil marks. That is why w^e call it rubber. 
People in South America learned to make a kind 
of heavy shoe out of it. But these shoes were 
hard to make. They cost a great deal when they 
were sold in this country. 

Men tried to make rubber shoes in this country. 
They got the rubber from Bra-zil. Rubber shoes 
made in this country were cheaper than those 
brought from South America. But they were 
not good. They would freeze till they were as 
hard as stones in w^inter. That was not the worst 
of it. In summer they would melt. 

EC.GL. Gl'. AMER. — 9 



no 



Good-year was trying to find out a way to make 
rubber better. He wanted to get it so that it 
would not melt in summer. He wanted to get a 
rubber that would not get hard in cold weather. 
The first rubber coats that were made were so hard 
in cold weather, that they would stand alone, and 
look like a man. 

Good-year wanted to try his rubber. That is 
why he wore a rubber coat and a rubber waist-coat 
and a rubber cravat. That is why he wore a 
rubber cap and rubber shoes when it was not rain- 
ing. He made paper out of rubber, and wrote a 
book on it. He had a door-plate made of it. He 
even carried a cane made of India rubber. It is 
no wonder people called him the India-rubber man. 

He was very poor. Sometimes he had to borrow 
money to buy rubber with. Sometimes his friends 
gave him money to keep his family from starving. 
Sometimes there was no wood and no coal in the 
house in cold weather. 

But Goodyear kept on trying. He thought that 
he was just going to find out. Years went by, and 
still he kept on trying. 

One day he was mixing some rubber with sul- 
phur. It slipped out of his hand. It fell on the 
hot stove. But it did not melt. Goodyear was 
happy at last. 



I"^l 



That night it was cold. Goodyear took the 
burned piece of rubber out of doors, ahd nailed it 
to the kitchen door. When morning came, he 
went and 2:ot it. It had not frozen. 

He was now sure that he was on the right track. 
But he had to find out how to mix and heat his 
rubber and sulphur. He was too poor to buy 
rubber to try with. Nobody would lend him any 
more money. His family had to live by the help 
of his friends. He had already sold almost every- 
thino: that he had. Now he had to sell his chil- 
dren's school-books to get money to buy rubber 
with. 

At last his rubber goods were made and sold. 
Poor men who had to stand in the rain could now 
keep themselves dry. People could walk in the 
wet with dry feet. A great many people are alive 
who would have died if they had not been kept dry 
by India rubber. 

You may count up, if you can, how many useful 
thino-s are made of rubber. We owe them all to 
one man. People laughed at Goodyear once. But 
at last they praised him. To be '' The India-rubber 
man " was something to be proud of. 



132 




DOCTOR KANE IN THE 
FROZEN SEA. 

Kane was a doctor in one 
of the war ships of the United 
States. He had sailed about the 
world a Q-reat deal. 

When he heard that ships were 
to be sent into the icy seas of the north, he asked 
to be sent along. He went the first time as a 
doctor. Then he wanted to find out more about 
the frozen ocean. So he went again as captain 
of a ship. His ship was called the " Advance." 

Kane sailed into the icy seas. His ship was 
driven far into the ice by a fu-ri-ous storm. She 
was crowded by ice-bergs. At one time she was 
lifted clear out of the water. The ship seemed 
ready to fall over on her side. But the ice let her 
down again. Then she was squeezed till the men 
thought that she would be crushed like an egg shell. 



133 

At last the storm stopped. Then came the 
awful cold. The ship was frozen into the ice. 
The ice never let go of her. She was farther north 
than any ship had ever been before. But she was 
so fast in the ice that she never could get away. 

In that part of the world it is night nearly all 
winter. For months there was no sun at all. 
Daylight came again. It was now summer, but it 
did not get warm. Doctor Kane took sleds, and 
went about on the ice to see what he could see. 
The sleds w^ere drawn by large dogs. But nearly 
all of the dogs died in the long winter night. 




A Dog Sled. 



Doctor Kane thouQ-ht that the ice would melt. 
He wanted to get the ship out. But the ice did 
not melt at all. 

At last the summer passed away. Another 
awful winter came. The sun did not rise any 
more. It was dark for months and months. The 
men were ill. Some of them died. They were 



134 

much dis-cour-aged. But Kane kept up his heart, 
and did the best he could. 

At last the least little streak of light could be 
seen. It got a little lighter each day. But the 
sick men down in the cabin of the ship could not 
see the light. 

Doctor Kane said to himself, " If my poor men 
could see this sunlight, it would cheer them up. 
It might save their lives." But they were too ill 
to get out where they could see the sun. It would 
be many days before the sun would shine into the 
cabin of the ship. The men might die before that 
time. 

So Doctor Kane took some looking glasses up 
to the deck or top of the ship. He fixed one of 
these so it w^ould catch the light of the sun. Then 
he fixed another so that the first one would throw 
the lieht on this one. The last one would throw 
the sunlio^ht down into the cabin where the sick 
men were. 

One day the poor fellows were ready to give up. 
Then the sun fell on the looking glasses, and flashed 
down into the cabin. It was the first daylight the 
sick men had seen for months. The long wintei 
night was over. Think how happy they were ! 



135 



A DINNER ON THE ICE. 

After two winters of cold and darkness, Doctor 
Kane made up his mind to leave the ship fast in 
the ice. He wanted to get to a place in Green- 
land where there were people living. Then he 
might find some way of getting home again. 

The men started out, drawing the boats on sleds. 
Whenever they came to open water, they put the 
boats into the water, and took the sleds in the boats. 
When they came to the ice again, they had to draw 
out their boats, and carry them on the sleds. At 
first they could travel only about a mile a day. 

It was a hard journey. Some of the men were 
ill. These had to be drawn on the sleds by the 
rest. They had not enough food. At one time 
they rested three days in a kind of cave. Here 
they found many birds' eggs. These made very 
good food for them. At another place they staid 
a week. They staid just to eat the eggs of the 
wild birds. 

After they left this place, they were hungry. The 
men grew^ thinner and thinner. It seemed that 
they must die for want of food. But one day they 
saw a large seal. He was floating on a piece of 
ice. The hungry men thought, ''What a fine din- 



136 




ner he would make for us ! " If they could get the 
seal, they would, not die of hunger. 

Every one of the poor fellows trembled for fear 
the seal would wake up. A man named Pe-ter-sen 
took a gun, and got ready to shoot. The men 
rowed the boat toward the seal. They rowed 
slowly and quietly. But the seal waked up. He 
raised his head. The men thought that he would 

jump off into the water. 
Then they might all die 
for want of food. 

Doctor Kane made a 
motion to Pe-ter-sen. 
That was to tell him to 
shoot quickly. But Pe- 
ter-sen did not shoot. He 
was so much afraid that 
the seal would get away, that he could not shoot. 
The seal now raised himself a little more. He was 
getting ready to jump into the water. Just then 
Petersen fired. The seal fell dead on the ice. 

The men were wild with joy. They rowed the 
boats with all their might. When they got to the 
seal, they dragged it farther away from the water. 
They were so happy, that they danced on the ice. 
Some of them laughed. Some were so glad, that 
they cried. 



1 



A Seal. 



^?>7 




Shooting the Seal. 



Then they took their knives and began to cut 
up the seal. They had no fire on the ice, and 
they were too hungry to think of hghting one. 
So they ate the meat of the seal without waiting 
to cook it. 



138 



DOCTOR KANE GETS OUT OF THE FROZEN 

SEA. 

After they got the seal, Doctor Kane and his 
men traveled on. Sometimes they were on the 
ice. Sometimes they were in the boats. The 
men were so weak, that they could hardly row 
the boats. They were so hungry, that they could 
not sleep well at night. 

One day they were rowing, when they heard a 
sound. It came to them across the water. It did 
not sound like the cry of sea birds. It sounded 
like people's voices. 

" Listen ! " Doctor Kane said to Pe-ter-sen. 

Pe-ter-sen spoke the same lan-guage as the people 
of Green-land. He listened. The sound came 
again. Pe-ter-sen was so glad, that he could hardly 
speak. He told Kane in a half whisper, that it 
was the voice of some one speaking his own lan- 
ofuaee. It was some Green-land men in a boat. 

The next day they got to a Green-land town. 
Then they got into a little ship going to England. 
They knew that they could get home from Eng- 
land. But the ship stopped at another Greenland 
town. While they were there, a steamer was seen. 
It came nearer. They could see the stars and 



139 

stripes flying from her mast. It was an Ameri- 
can steamer sent to find Doctor Kane. 

Doctor Kane and his men were full of joy. 
They pushed their little boat into the water once 
more. This little boat was called the " Faith." It 
had carried Kane and his men hundreds of miles 
in icy seas. 

Once more the men took their oars, and rowed. 
This time they rowed with all their might. They 
held up the little flag that they had carried farther 
north than anybody had ever been before. They 
rowed straight to the steamer. 

In the bow of the boat was a little man with a 
tattered red shirt. He could see that the cap- 
tain of the boat was lookins: at him throuofh a 
spy-glass. 

The captain shouted to the little man, " Is that 
Doctor Kane ? " 

The little man in the red shirt shouted back, 
" Yes ! " 

Doctor Kane and his men had been gone more 
than two years. People had begun to think that 
they had all died. This steamer had been sent to 
find out what had become of them. When the 
men on the steamer heard that this little man in 
the red shirt was Doctor Kane himself, they sent 
up cheer after cheer. 



140 

In a few minutes more, Doctor Kane and his men 
were on the steamer. They were now safe among 
friends. They were saiHng away toward their 
homes. 



LONGFELLOW AS A BOY. 



LoNG-FEL-Low was a 
noble boy. He always 
wanted to do right. He 
could not bear to see one 
person do any wrong to 
another. 

He was very 
tender-hearted. 
One day he 
took a gun and 
went shooting. 
He killed a 
robin. Then 
he felt sorry 
for the robin 
He came home 
with tears in 




Longfellow and the Bird. 



his eyes. He was so grieved, that he never went 



shootino; ao^ain. 

He liked to read Irving's 



Sketch Book." Its 



141 

strange stories about Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van 
Win-kle pleased his fancy. 

When he was thirteen he wrote a poem. It was 
about Love-well's fight with the Indians. He sent 
his verses to a news-paper. He wondered if the 
ed-i-tor would print them. He could not think of 
anything else. He walked up and down in front 
of the printing office. He thought that his poem 
might be in the printer s hands. 

When the paper came out, there was his poem. 
It was signed " Henry." Long-fel-low read it. He 
thought it a good poem. 

But a judge who did not know whose poem it 
was talk'ed about it that evening. He said to 
young Long-fel-low, " Did you see that poem in 
the paper ? It was stiff. And all taken from other 
poets, too." 

This made Henry Long-fel-low feel bad. But 
he kept on trying. After many years, he became 
a famous poet. 

For more than fifty years, young people have 
liked to read his poem called " A Psalm of Life." 
Here are three stanzas of it : — 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sub-lime, 
And, de-part-ing, leave behind us 
Foot-prints on the sands of time, — 



142 

" Foot-prints, that perhaps another, 
Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
A forlorn and ship-wrecked brother, 
Seeing, may take heart again. 

" Let us, then, be up and doing. 
With a heart for any fate ; 
Still a-chiev-ing, still pur-su-ing. 
Learn to labor and to wait." 



KIT CARSON AND THE BEARS. 

Great men of one kind are known only in 
new countries like ours. These men dis-cov-er 
new regions. They know how to manage the 
Indians. They show other people how to live in 
a wild country. 

One of the most famous of such men was Kit 
Car-son. He knew all about the wild animals. 
He was a great hunter. He learned the lan- 
guages of the Indians. The Indians liked him. 
He w^as a great guide. He showed soldiers and 
settlers how to travel where they wished to go. 

Once he was marching through the wild coun- 
try with other men. Evening came. He left the 
others, and went to shoot something to eat. It 
was the only w^ay to get meat for supper. 



143 

When he had gone about a mile, he saw the 
tracks of some elks. He followed these tracks. 
He came in sight of the elks. They were eating 
grass on a hill, as cows do. 

Kit Car-son crept up behind some bushes. But 
elks are very timid animals. Before the hunter 
got very near, they began to run away. So Car- 
son fired at one of them as it was running. The 
elk fell dead. 

But just at that moment he heard a roar. He 
turned to see what made this ugly noise. Two 
huge bears were running toward him. They 
wanted some meat for supper, too. 

Kit Carson's gun was empty. He threw it 
down. Then he ran as fast as he could. He 
wanted to find a tree. 

Just as the bears were about to seize him, he got 
to a tree. He caught hold of a limb. He swun«: 
himself up into the tree. The bears just missed 
getting him. 

But bears know how to climb trees. Carson 
knew that they would soon be after him. He 
pulled out his knife, and began to cut off a limb. 
He wanted to make a club. 

A bear is much larger and stronger than a man. 
He cannot be killed with a club. But every bear 
has one tender spot. It is his nose. He does 



144 



not like to be hit on the nose. A sharp blow on 

the nose hurts him a great deal. 

Kit Carson got his club cut just in time. The 

bears were coming after him. . Kit got up into the 

very top of the tree. 
He drew up his feet, 
and made himself as 
small as he could. 

When the bears 
came near, one of 
them reached for 
Kit. Whack ! went 
the stick on the end 
of his nose. The 
bear drew back, and 
whined with pain. 

First one bear 
tried to get him, 
and then the other. 
But which-ever one 

tried. Kit was ready. The bear was sure to get his 

nose hurt. 

The bears grew tired, and rested awhile. But 

they kept up their screeching and roaring. 

When their noses felt better, they tried again. 

And then they tried again. But every time they 

came away with sore noses. 




I 



145 

At last they both tried at once. But Carson 
pounded faster than ever. One of the bears cried 
Hke a baby. The tears ran out of his eyes. It 
hurt his feehngs to have his nose treated in this 
rude way. 

After a long time one of the bears got tired. 
He went away. After awhile the other went away 
too. Kit Carson staid in the tree a long time. 
Then he came down. The first thino- he did was 
to get his gun. He loaded it. But the bears did 
not come back. They were too busy rubbing 
noses. 



HORACE GREELEY AS A BOY. 

HoR-ACE Gree-ley was the son of a poor farmer. 
He was always fond of books. He learned to read 
almost as soon as he could talk. He could read 
easy books when he was three years old. When he 
was four, he could read any book that he could get. 

He went to an old-fashioned school. Twice a 
day all the children stood up to spell. They were 
in two classes. Little Hor-ace was in tlie class 
with the grown-up young people. He was the best 
speller in the class. It was funny to see the little 
midget at the head of this class of older people. 

EGGL. GT. AMKK, — IQ 



146 

But he was only a little boy in his feelings. If 
he missed a word, he would cry. The one that 
spelled a word that he missed would have a right 
to take the head of the class. Sometimes when 
he missed, the big boys would not take the head. 
They did not like to make the little fellow cry. 
He was the pet of all the school. 

People in that day were fond of spelling. They 
used to hold meetings at night to spell. They 
called these " spelling schools." 

At a spelling school two captains were picked 
out. These chose their spellers. Then they tried 
to see which side could beat the other at spelling. 

Little Hor-ace was always chosen first. The 
side that got him got the best speller in the school. 
Sometimes the little fellow would go to sleep. 
When it came his turn to spell, some-body would 
wake him up. He would rub his eyes, and spell 
the word. He would spell it right, too. 

When he was four or five years old, he would lie 
under a tree, and read. He would lie there, and 
forget all about his dinner or his supper. He 
would not move until some-body stumbled over 
him or called him. 

People had not found out how to burn ker-o-sene 
oil in lamps then. They used candles. But poor 
people like the Gree-leys could not afford to burn 



U7 




Greeley Reading. 

many candles. Hor-ace gathered pine knots to 
read by at night. 

He would light a pine knot. Then he would 
throw it on top of the large log at the back of the 
fire. This would make a bricrht flick-er-inir lioht. 

Horace would lay all the books he wanted on 
the hearth. Then he would lie down by them. His 
head was toward the fire. His feet were drawn up 
out of the way. 

The first thing that lie did was to studv all 
his lessons for the next day. Then he would read 
other books. He never seemed to know when any- 
body came or went. He kept on with his reading. 



148 

His father did not want him to read too late. 
He was afraid that he would hurt his eyes. And 
he wanted to have him get up early in the morn- 
ing to help with the work. So when nine o'clock 
came, he would call, " Horace, Horace, Horace ! " 
But it took many callings to rouse him. 

When he got to bed, he would say his lessons 
over to his brother. He would tell his brother 
what he had been reading. But his brother would 
fall asleep while Horace was talking. 

Horace liked to read better than he liked to 
work. But when he had a task to do, he did it 
faith-ful-ly. His brother would say, " Let us go 
fishing." But Horace would answer, " Let us get 
our work done first." 

Horace Gree-ley's father grew poorer and poorer. 
When Horace was ten years old, his land was sold. 
The family were now very poor. They moved 
from New Hamp-shire. They settled in Ver-mont. 
They lived in a poor little cabin. 

Horace had to work hard like all the rest of the 
family. But he borrowed all the books he could get. 
Sometimes he walked seven miles to borrow a book. 

A rich man who lived near the Greeleys used to 
lend books to Horace. Horace had grown tall. 
His hair was white. He was poorly dressed. He 
was a strange-looking boy. 



149 

One day he went to the house of the rich man to 
borrow books. Some one said to the owner of the 
house, " Do you lend books to such a fellow as that ? " 

But the gen-tle-man said, " That boy will be a 
great man some day." 

This made all the com-pa-ny laugh. It seemed 
funny that anybody should think of this poor boy 
becomino: a o-reat man. But it came true. The 
poor white-headed boy came to be a great man. 

Horace Greeley learned all that he could learn 
in the country schools. When he was thirteen, 
one teacher said to his father, — 

" Mr. Greeley, Horace knows more than I do. 
It is not of any use to send him to school any 
more." 

HORACE GREELEY LEARNING TO PRINT. 

Horace Greeley had always wanted to be a 
printer. He liked books and papers. He thought 
it would be a fine thing to learn to make them. 

One day he heard that the news-paper at East 
Poult-ney wanted a boy to learn the printer's trade. 
He walked many long miles to see about it. He 
went to see Mr. Bliss. Mr. Bliss was one of the 
owners of the paper. Horace found him working 
in his garden. 



ISO 

Mr. Bliss looked up. He saw a big boy coming 
toward him. The boy had on a white felt hat with 
a narrow brim. It looked like a half-peck meas- 
ure. His hair was white. His trousers were too 
short for him. All his clothes were coarse and 
poor. He was such a strange-looking boy, that 
Mr. Bliss wanted to laugh. 

" I heard that you wanted a boy," Horace said. 

" Do you want to learn to print ? " Mr. Bliss 
said. 

"Yes," said Horace. 

" But a printer ought to know a good many 
things," said Mr. Bliss. " Have you been to school 
much ? " 

" No," said Horace. " I have not had much 
chance at school. But I have read some." 

" What have you read ? " asked Mr. Bliss. 

" Well, I have read some his-to-ry, and some trav- 
els, and a little of everything." 

Mr. Bliss had ex-am-ined a great many school- 
teachers. He liked to puzzle teachers with hard 
questions. He thought he would try Horace with 
these. But the gawky boy answered them all. 
This tow-headed boy seemed to know everything. 

Mr. Bliss took a piece of paper from his pocket. 
He wrote on it, " Guess we'd better try him." 

He gave this paper to Horace, and told him to 



I5T 



take it to the printing office. Horace, with his 
little white hat and strange ways, went into the 
printing office. The boys in the office laughed 
at him. But the fore- 
man said he would try 
him. 

That night the boys 
in the office said to Mr. 
Bliss, " You are not go- 
ing to take that tow- 
head, are you.^^ " 

Mr. Bliss said, 
" There is something 
in that tow-head. You 
boys will find it out 
soon." 

A few days after 
this, Horace came to 
East Poult-ney to be- 
gin his work. He carried a little bundle of clothes 
tied up in a hand-ker-chief. 

The fore-man showed him how to be<:>in. From 
that time he did not once look around. All day 
he worked at his type. He learned more in a day 
than some bovs do in a month. 

Day after day he worked, and said nothing. 
The other boys joked him. But he did not seem 




Greeley setting Type. 



152 

to hear them. He only kept on at his work. 
They threw type at him. But he did not look up. 

The largest boy in the office thought he could 
find a way to tease him. One day he said that 
Horace s hair was too white. He went and got the 
ink ball. He stained Horace's hair black in four 
places. This ink stain would not wash out. But 
Horace did not once look up. 

After that, the boys did not try to tease him any 
more. They all liked the good-hearted Horace. 
And everybody in the town wondered that the boy 
knew so much. 

Horace's father had moved away to Penn-syl- 
va-ni-a. Horace sent him all the money he could 
spare. He soon became a good printer. He 
started a paper of his own. He became a famous 
news-paper man. 



153 



A WONDERFUL WOMAN. 

Little Dor-o-thy Dix was poor. Her father did 
not know how to make a Hvincr. Her mother did 
not know how to bring up her children. 

The father moved from place to place. Some- 
times he printed little tracts to do good. But he 
let his own children grow up poor and wretched. 

Dor-o-thy wanted to learn. She wanted to 
become a teacher. She wanted to get money to 
send her little brothers to school. 

Dor-o-thy was a girl of strong will and temper. 
When she was twelve years old, she left her 
wretched home. She went to her o^rand-mother. 
Her grand-mother Dix lived in a large house in 
Boston. She sent Dorothy to school. 

Dorothy learned fast. But she wanted to make 
money. She wanted to help her brothers. When 
she was fourteen, she taught a school. She tried 
to make herself look like a woman. She made her 
dresses longer. 

She soon went back to her grand-mother. She 
went to school aoain. Then she tauQ-ht school. 
She soon had a school in her grandmother's house. 
It was a very good school. Many girls were sent 
to her school. 



154 ■ 

Miss Dix was often ill. But when she was well 
enough, she worked away. She was able to send 
her brothers to school until they grew up. 

Besides helping her brothers, she wanted to help 
other poor children. She started a school for poor 
children in her grandmother's barn. 

After a while she left off teaching. She was not 
well. She had made all the money she needed. 

But she was not idle. She went one day to 
teach some poor women in an alms-house. Then 
she went to see the place where the crazy people 
were kept. These insane people had no fire in 
the coldest weather. 

Miss Dix tried to get the man-a-gers to put up 
a stove in the room. But they would not do it. 
Then she went to the court. She told the judge 
about it. The judge said that the insane people 
ought to have a fire. He made the man-a-gers put 
up a stove in the place where they were kept. 

Then Miss Dix went to other towns. She 
wanted to see how the insane people were treated. 
Some of them were shut up in dark, damp cells. 
One young man was chained up with an iron 
collar about his neck. 

Miss Dix got new laws made about the insane. 
She per-suad-ed the States to build large houses for 
keeping the insane. She spent most of her life at 
this work. 



155 

The Civil War broke out. There were many 
sick and wounded soldiers to be taken care of. 

All of the nurses in the hos-pi-tals were put under 
Miss Dix. She worked at this as lono^ as the war 
lasted. Then she spent the rest of her life doing 
all that she could for insane people. 



THE AUTHOR OF ''LITTLE WOMEN." 

Lou-i-SA Al-cott was a wild little girl. When 
she was very little, she would run away from home. 
She liked to play with beggar children. 

One day she wandered so far away from her 
home, she could not find the way back again. It 
was growing dark. The little girl's feet were tired. 
She sat down on a door-step. A big dog was 
lying on the step. He wagged his tail. That was 
his way of saying, " I am glad to see you." 

Little Lou-i-sa grew sleepy. She laid her head 
on the curly head of the big dog. Then she fell 
asleep. 

Lou-i-sa's father and mother could not find her. 
They sent out the town crier to look for her. 

The town crier went along the street. As he 
went, he rang his bell. Every now and then he 
would tell that a little cfirl was lost. 



156 

At last the man with the bell came to the place 
where Louisa was asleep. He rang his bell. 
That waked her up. She heard him call out in 
a loud voice, — 

"Lost, lost! a little girl six years old. She 
wore a pink frock, a white hat, and new green 
shoes." 

When the crier had said that, he heard a small 
voice coming out of the darkness. It said, "Why, 
dat's me." The crier went to the voice, and found 
Louisa sitting by the big dog on the door-step. 
The next day she was tied to the sofa to punish 
her for running away. 

She and her sisters learned to sew well. Louisa 
set up as a doll's dress-maker. She was then 
twelve years old. She hung out a little sign. She 
put some pretty dresses in the window to show 
how well she could do. 

Other eirls liked the little dresses that she made. 
They came to her to get dresses made for their 
dolls. They liked the little doll's hats she made 
better than all. Louisa chased the chickens to 
get soft feathers for these hats. 

She turned the old fairy tales into little plays. 
The children played these plays in the barn. 

One of these plays was Jack and the Bean-stalk. 
A squash vine was put up in the barn. This was 



157 

the bean-stalk. When it was cut clown, the boy 
who played giant would come tumbling out of the 

hay-loft. 

Louisa found it hard to be good and o-be-di-ent. 
She wrote some verses about being good. She 
was fourteen years old when she wrote them. 
Here they are : — 

MY KINGDOM. 

A little kingdom I possess 

Where thoughts and feelings dwell, 

And very hard I find the task 
Of gov-ern-ing it well. 

For passion tempts and troubles me, 

A wayward will misleads, 
And sel-fish-ness its shadow^ casts 

On all my words and deeds. 

I do not ask for any crown 

But that which all may win, 
Nor seek to conquer any world 

Except the one within. 



158 



The Al-cott family were very poor. Louisa 
made up her mind to do something to make money 
when she got big. She did not Hke 
being so very poor. 

One day she was sitting on a cart-wheel think- 
ing. She was thinking how poor her father was. 
There was a crow up in the air over her head. The 
crow was cawing. There was nobody to tell her 
thoughts to but the crow. She shook her fist at 
the big bird, and said, — 

" I will do something by and by. Don't care 
what. I'll teach, sew, act, write, do anything to 
help the family. And I'll be rich and famous 
before I die. See if I don't." 

The crow did not 
make any answer. But 
Louisa kept thinking 
about the work she was 
going to do. The other 
children got work to 
do that made money. 
But Louisa was left at 
home to do housework. 
She had to do the 
washing. She made 
a little song about it. 
Here are some of the 
verses of this song : — 




159 



A SONG FROM THE SUDS. 




Queen of my tub, I merrily 
sing, 
While the white foam rises 
high, 
And stur-cli-ly wash and 
rinse and wring. 
And fasten the clothes to 
dry; 
Then out in the free fresh 
air they swing. 
Under the sunny sky. 



I am glad a task to me is given. 

To labor at day by day ; 
For it brings me health and strength and hope. 

And I cheer-ful-ly learn to say, 
" Head you may think. Heart you may feel. 

But Hand you shall work alway." 

Louisa grew to be a woman at last. She went 
to nurse soldiers in the war. She wrote books. 
When she wrote the book called " Little Women," 
all the young people were de-light-ed. What she 
had said to the crow came true at last. She 
became famous. She had money enough to make 
the family com-fort-a-ble. 



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